Maria Magdalena Holtzmeister, daughter of Johannes & Catharina Holtzmeister from Steinheim, was born on 18 April 1766 and baptized 19 April 1766 in Büdingen.
Johann Holzmeister, a farmer, his wife Anna Katharina, and children (Leonhard, age 13; Magdalena, age ¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 11 August 1766 aboard the Russian galliot named Citadel under the command of Midshipman Gregory Bukharin.
Johannes Holtzmeister, his wife Catarina, and children (Leonhard, age 14; Magdalena, age ¼) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that mother Catrina and daughter Magdalena died en route.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Pfeifer on 22 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 80.
The 1767 census records that Johann Holzmeister came from the German village of Steinheim in the Mainz region.
- 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): Pf45.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #1204.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 396.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5264 (p.334).
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #2716-2719.
Brent Mai
Entry from the Oranienbaum passenger list recording Johann Holzmeister and his family.
Source: Brent Mai.