Philipp Peter Rothau, a farmer, his wife Anna Maria, and children (Anna Magdalena, age 10½; Christian, age 5) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a pinque named Slon (Elephant) under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 64.
Philipp Peter Rothau and his family are recorded on the 1775 census of Norka.
By 1798, Christian Rothau had moved from Norka to Stahl am Tarlyk. Christian Rothau and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Stahl am Tarlyk in Household No. St36.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Peter Rothau came from the German district of Kurpfalz.
- 1775 Norka Census.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 508.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Nr121, St36.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 246.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3997.
Brent Mai