Joseph Gretschmann, a farmer, his wife Maria, and daughter Anna Maria (age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Adler (Eagle) under the command of Skipper Paul Adolph Drath.
Joseph Gratschmann [sic], his wife Maria, and daughter Anna (age 6, died en route) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Seelmann on 5 September 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 49.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Joseph Gretschmann came from the German region of Schwaben (Swabia). The 1767 census records that Joseph Gretschmann came from the German village of Buch in the region of Schwaben (Swabia).
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- 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): 753-754.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 158.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6031.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #6746-6748.
Brent Mai