The parish register of Mettenheim records that Johann Georg Krämer, a straw cutter (Strohschnitter), was born in the Darmstadt area. His wife, Maria Barbara Franz from Fischbach, died in Astracan [the region in which the Volga German colonies were located at the time]. His daughter Anna Catharina married in Astracan. His other daughter died there.
Johann Georg Krämer, a farmer, his wife Anna, and daughter (Katharina, age 5¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 18 July 1766 aboard a Russian packet-boat named Svyataya Ekaterina (St. Catherine) under the command of Midshipman Alexander Trusov along with his sister-in-law Elisabeth [surname not recorded] (age 16¼).
They settled in the Volga German colony of Dietel on 1 July 1767. Widower Johann Georg Krämer is recorded there on the 1767 census along with his daughters (Katharina, age 8; Susanna Magdalena, age 6-weeks) and sister-in-law Elisabeth (age 17) [surname not recorded, probably Susanna Elisabeth Mattias, the illegitimate daughter of Magdalena Franz, who married Friedrich Jakob Schlund in 1768].
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Georg Krämer came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that he came from the German village of Grosshausen in the Darmstadt region.
- 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): 334.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) : Origins and Destinations (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #1242, #1243.
- Parish register of Mettenheim (LDS Film No. 1442055).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 289.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2474.
Brent Mai