Franz Schermer and his wife Margaretha arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard the pink Lev 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 (age 15) [surname believed to be Rahnert].
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.
- 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