Friedrich Merk [sic], a cobbler (Schuhmacher), his wife Johanna, and children (Gottlieb, age 4; Christina, age 3) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English barque named George under the command of Skipper Adam Bairnsfair.
Friderich Mirck [sic], his wife Sophia, and children (Carl, age 6; Johanna, age 4; Friderich, born in route) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Friedrich Merk [sic], a cobbler (Schuhmacher), his wife [new] Johanna, and son Johann Karl (age 6) are recorded on the 1767 census of Boisroux in Household No. 57. They had arrived in Boisroux on 3 August 1767.
(1) Karl Märker (age 36) and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Boisroux in Household No. Bx02. Subsequent documents continue to identify this family as Merker (rather than Merk).
The death of Karl Merker in 1819 is recorded on the 1834 census of Boisroux in Household No. 7.
(2) Friedrich Merker (age 29) and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Boisroux in Household No. Bx38.
Friedrich Merker and his family are recorded on the 1834 census of Boisroux in Household No. 110. Additional sons of Friedrich and their families are recorded on the 1834 census of Boisroux in Households No. 69, 75, and 81.
(3) Dorothea Reichert née Merker (age 26), presumed daughter of Friedrich Merker, and her family are recorded on the 1798 census of Boisroux in Household No. Bx09.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Friedrich Merk [sic] came from the German region of Sachsen (Saxony). The 1767 census records that Friedrich Merk [sic] came from the German village of Laas in the region of Sachsen (Saxony).
- 1834 Boisroux Census (Households No. 7, 69, 75, 81, 110).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 191.
- 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): Bx02, Bx09, Bx38.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 153.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1279.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #4037-4041.
Brent Mai
Waldemar Kurt