Michael Helske, a farmer, his wife Barbara, and daughter Maria Elisabeth (age ½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the galliot named Elisabeth Catharina under the command of Skipper Heinrich Ludwig Gottknecht.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Brabander on 26 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 81.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Helske came from the German region of Trier. The 1767 census records that Michael Helske came from the German village of Bernkastle in the Trier region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Helske family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 400.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 232.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3079.
Brent Mai