Franz Schermer and his wife Margaretha arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 17 July 1766 aboard a pink named Lev (Lion) under the command of Lieutenant Fyodor Fyodorov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Pfeifer on 20 August 1767. Franz is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 57 along with his [new] wife Maria Kunigunda and her brother Sebastian [Rahnert] (age 15). [See Rahnert Family.]
The 1798 census of Pfeifer records that Adam Schirmer in Household No. Pf08 is working in the colony of Göbel.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Franz Schermer was a farmer from the German region of Dienheim. The 1767 census records that Franz Schirmer was a cartwright (Wagonbauer) from the German region of Würzburg.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 321.
- 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): Pf08.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 391.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2370.
Brent Mai