Heinrich Martin Maÿer & Catharina Schlinckenfing were married on 6 March 1766 in the Lutheran Church of Büdingen.
Friedrich Meier, a farmer, his wife Maria Barbara, and children (Katharina Margaretha, age 11; Anna Elisabeth, age 9; Johann Christoph, age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 28 July 1766 aboard a Russian pink named Vologda [an historic Russian city] under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Bartenyev. They were traveling with Martin Meier, another son of Friedrich, and his wife Katharina.
Friedrich and his wife died after arriving in Russia, and their children settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 22 September 1767. Son Martin, whose wife also did not survive, is recorded on the 1767 census in Norka in Household No. 211 along with his sister Katharina Margaretha (age 10). Another sister, Elisabeth (age 8) is recorded in Household No. 204 living with the Konrad Dick family. A relationship between the Meier and the Dick families is not recorded.
Martin Meier and his family are recorded on an appendix to the 1775 census of Norka in Household No. 2.
An Elisabeth Meier (age 13) is recorded on the 1775 census of Norka in Household No. 1.
In 1788, Heinrich Martin Meier moved from Norka to Saratov.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that this Meier family came from the German region of Franken (Franconia). The 1767 census records that Martin Meier came from the German region of Hanau.
- 1775 Norka Census (Household No. 1 & Supplemental Household No. 2).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 605.
- 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): Mv1935.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt, German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #374.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 285 & 287.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4840, #4841.
Brent Mai