Johann Stephan Berger, a cobbler (Schuhmacher), his wife Maria, and children (Anna, age 14; Joseph, age ¾) arrived from Lübeck via Reval [Estonia] at the port of Oranienbaum on 24 May 1766 aboard a pinque named Лапоминк (Lapomink - a Russian river) under the command of Lieutenant Dmitry Krykov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Seelmann on 24 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 44.
Joseph Berger is recorded on the 1798 census of Seelmann in Household No. Sm58.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Stephan Berger came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that Stephan Berger came from the German village of Grävenstein in the Kurpfalz region. [There is an historic castle Gräfenstein located in the Kurpfalz region. Perhaps this family originated there.]
There are no known surviving male lines of this Berger 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): 87.
- 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): Sm58.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 157.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: State Technical University, 2010): #350.
Brent Mai