Johann Keller, a carpenter (Tischler), and his wife Anna 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 Preuss on 12 May 1767. Johann Georg Keller is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 49 along with his new wife Margaretha and her daughter Elisabeth (age 1) [surname not recorded].
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Keller came from the German region of Koblenz while the 1767 census records that he came from the German region of Trier.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Keller 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): 116.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 420.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #630.
Brent Mai