The parish register of St. Martin's Church in Orb records the baptisms of the following children of Valentin & Catharina Pfeifer: (1) Johannes Heinrich, baptized 2 October 1733, died 14 October 1733; (2) Anna Maria, baptized 4 March 1735, died 29 May 1809 [in Orb]; (3) Catharina, baptized 1 December 1737; (twins 4 & 5) Johannes Heinrich & Georg, baptized 11 July 1740 [Johannes Heinrich died 31 August 1740 & Georg died 15 October 1741]; (6) Johannes Jacob, baptized 30 September 1742; (7) Johannes, baptized 25 January 1746; (8) Maria Margaretha, baptized 25 March 1750; and (9) Philipp, baptized 23 January 1753, died 16 August 1760. Valentin remarried on 7 January 1761 at St. Martin's Church in Orb to widow Elisabeth [surname not recorded].
Valentin Pfeifer, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and [step-]children [surnames not recorded] (Katharina, age 6; Anna, age 1) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 10 August 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Nikolaus Peter Pink.
Valentin Pfeiffer [sic], his wife Elisabeth, and daughter Cathrina [sic] (age 6) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that Valentin died in route.
Widow Elisabeth Pfeifer and her daughter have not been located among the Volga German colonies.
Two of Valentin's sons by his first marriage also immigrated to Russia:
(1) Johannes Pfeifer and his wife Katharina arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard the pink Lev under the command of Lieutenant Fyodor Fyodorov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Pfeifer on 20 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 6.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johannes Pfeifer was a stonemason from the German region of Mainz while the 1767 census records that he was a farmer from the village of Orb.
(2) Jakob Pfeifer, a farmer, and his wife Anna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 10 August 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Nikolaus Peter Pink.
Jacob Pfeiffer, his wife Maria, and new-born daughter Anna Margreth. are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that Anna Margreth. died in route.
They are recorded on a list of Beauregard recruits (No. 57) attached to the 1767 census along with the orphan Anna Maria Bossert [Basser] (age 15). The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Pfeifer and Bossert [Basser] families.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Jakob Pfeifer came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that he came from the German village of Orb.
In 1828, Adam Pfeifer and his family moved from Pfeifer to Herzog where they are recorded on the 1834 census of Herzog in Household No. 29.
- 1834 Herzog Census (Household No. 29).
- Kertel, Karola. Ortsfamilienbuch Bad Orb. [Online]
- 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): Lz29, Pf40.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 379.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 360.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2348, #4256, #4257.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5782-5787.
Brent Mai