Three Fey families arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 20 August 1766 aboard a ship named Der Friede (Peace) under the command of Skipper Hans Karck. Their relationship to each other, if any, needs further research.
(1) Philipp Peter Fey and his wife Philippina arrived in Oranienbaum.
Peter Fei, his wife Philipina, and widow Elisabt. are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that both Philipina and Elisabt. died en route.
Peter is recorded on a list of Beauregard recruits (No.22) appended to the 1767 census of the Volga German colonies along with his new wife Maria and orphan Philipp Jakob Schlarf. No relationship between the Fey and Schlarf families is recorded on the 1767 census.
(2) Jakob Fey, his wife Barbara, and children (Susanna, age 16; Philipp, age 11; Charlotta, age 8) arrived in Oranienbaum. It is believed that the children are actually Barbara's by a previous marriage and that their surname should be Schlarf - Philipp being the Philipp Jakob Schlarf that is later recorded living with Philipp Peter Fey.
Jacob Frei, his wife Barbara, and children (Susanna, age 16¼; Philip, age 11; Charllotta, age 8) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that mother Barbara and daughter Charllotta died en route.
Jakob remarried to Francisca, the widow of Ernst Wiegandt, but she also died. Jakob then married Charlotte with whom he is recorded on the 1767 census on a list of Beauregard recruits (No. 23) along with the surviving children of Ernst Wiegandt.
(3) Elisabeth Fey arrived in Oranienbaum.
Widow Elisabeth Fey is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that she died in route.
The 1767 census records that Philipp Peter Fei came from the German village of Weißenhasel. The 1767 census records that Jakob Fei came from the German village of Meine.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Fei/Fey family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 866-867.
- 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): Zr50.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 353, 354.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #7047, #7048, #7049, #7068.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #3851-3858.
Brent Mai