[Johann] Christoph Kister, his wife Elisabeth, and children (Anna, age 5¼; Katharina, age 2½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 20 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Catharina Eleonora under the command of Skipper Peter Rehder.
The parish register of Schilling records the birth of Johann Georg Wilhelm Küster, son of Johann Christoph Küster & Maria Elisabeth Molck, on 22 July 1767 on the Volga River near Saratov while en route to the colonies.
Johann Christoph Küster (age 40), a farmer, his wife Elisabeth (age 31), and daughters (Margaretha Elisabeth, age 6; Katharina Philippina, age 3) are recorded on the 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 20. They had arrived in Walter on 25 August 1767.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Christoph Kister was a miller from the German region of Hanau. The 1767 census records that he was a farmer from the German village of Linkenheim in the region of Baden-Durlach.
- 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): 811.
- 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): Wt103.
- Parish register of Schilling.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 299.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6492.
Brent Mai
Habermann (Wolgadeutsche.net Forum)