Ludwig Kraft, a farmer, and his wife Elisabeth arrived from Lübeck via Reval [Estonia] at the port of Oranienbaum on 25 May 1766 aboard a pinque named Новая Двинка (New Dvinka [a river in Russia]) under the command of Lieutenant Ivan Perepechin.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Frank in 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 10.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Ludwig Kraft came from the German region of Lobach. The 1767 census records that Ludwig Kraft came from the German village of Rutenburg in the Lobach region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Kraft 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): 101.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 421.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #487.
Brent Mai