According to the Wolferborn parish records, Johann Heinrich Stürz, son of Heinrich Stürz of Michelau, married on 9 October 1743 to Anna Margareatha Geiß, daughter of Nicolaus Geiß. The baptisms of four children are found in the Wolferborn records: (1) Johann Ernst, 18 December 1743 (died 7 February 1744); (2) Conrad, 7 February 1745; (3) Johann Adam, 27 August 1747; and (4) Johann Ernst, 5 July 1753.
Two of the sons (Johann, age 18½; Ernst, age 15¼) appear to have arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 17 July 1766 aboard a pink named Lev (Lion) under the command of Lieutenant Fyodor Fyodorov along with many other families who settled in the Volga German colony of Kutter. They are recorded arriving in Oranienbaum with Dorothea Stürz who is identified as their mother. Perhaps she is their stepmother.
Sons Johann Adam and Johann Ernst settled in the Volga German colony of Kutter on 8 July 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 45.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Dorothea Stürz came from the German region of Isenburg.
- 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): 315.
- 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): Kt60.
- Parish register of Wolferborn.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 487.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2325.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai