Johann Weitzel, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and sons (Peter, age 22; Heinrich, age 17¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Kamenka on 20 June 1767. Johann is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 88 along with his new wife (also Katharina) and her daughter Margaretha (age 20) [surname not recorded]. Orphan Konrad Bachmann (age 14), son of the deceased Hans Georg Bachmann, is also recorded in Household No. 88 on the 1767 census of Kamenka.
The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Weitzel and Bachmann families.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Weitzel came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that Johann Weitzel came from the German village of Seligenstadt.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Weitzel family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 235.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 238.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1676.
Brent Mai