The births of the following children born to Johannes & Maria Magdalena Schwerdt have been located in the parish register of St. Nikolaus Catholic Church in Wickstadt: (1) Johannes Peter, born 25 October 1739; (2) Maria Elisabetha, born 6 October 1741; (3) Johannes, born 13 March 1744; and (4) Johannes Peter, born 28 March 1748.
Father Johannes Schwerdt died 17 April 1755 in Wickstadt at the age of 61.
The above family is believed to be the Schwerdt family that settled in the Volga German colony of Kamenka.
Johann Schwerdt, a farmer, his mother Maria, and siblings (Johann [Peter], age 18; Elisabeth, age 12) arrived from Lübeck via Reval [Estonia] at the port of Oranienbaum on 27 May 1766 aboard a pinque named Слон (Slon - Elephant in Russian) under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Kamenka on 1 March 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Households No. 64 and 65, respectively.
Johannes Schwerdt, his wife Anna Margaretha, and children (Susanna, age 5; Johannes, age 2) are recorded on the 1775 census of Kamenka in Household No. 3.
Peter Schwerdt, his wife Magdalena, and children (Maria Elisabeth, age 4; Joseph, age ¼) are recorded on the 1775 census of Kamenka in Household No. 101.
In 1794, Johannes Schwerdt left Kamenka. [He may have gone to Semenovka since there is an Anna Maria Schwerdt from Semenovka recorded on the 1798 census of Franzosen in Household No. Fz11.]
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Schwerdt came from the German Wetterau region. The 1767 census records that he came from the German town of Frankfurt am Main.
- 1775 Kamenka Census (Households No. 3, 101).
- 1834 Kamenka Census (Household No. 77).
- 1850 Kamenka Census (Household No. 85).
- 1857 Kamenka Census (Household No. 97).
- 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): 105.
- 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): Fz11, Km033, Km048, Km059, Km090, Km099, Mv1113.
- Parish register of St. Nikolaus Catholic Church in Wickstadt.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 231, 232.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #534.
Brent Mai
Anonymous2