Mathias Bettenhäuser, a baker, his wife Eva, and children (Juliana, age 16; Katharina, age 12; Johann Bartel, age 10⅛; Johann Michael, age 7; Mattias, age 4) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 29 July 1766 aboard a ship named Apollo under the command of Skipper Friedrich Detloff Mörenberg.
The surviving children (Barbara, age 12; Bartholomeus, age 10½; and Michael, age 7) settled in the Volga German colony of Köhler on 21 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 93.
The widow of Bartholomeus Bettenhäuser and her son are recorded on the 1798 census of Kamenka in Household No. Km091.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Mattias Bettenhäuser came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that Bartholomeus Bettenhäuser came from the German village of Grünau in the Mainz region.
- 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): 632.
- 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): Kl91, Km091.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 382.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5076.
Brent Mai