Johann Walger, a farmer, his wife Anna, and [siblings] (Johann, age 16; Anna, age 14) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 8 August 1766 aboard the galliot Anna Catharina under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Janson.
Johann Henr. Walger, his wife Anna Margr., and [siblings] (Joh. Henrich, age not recorded; Anna Margr., age 14) are recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that wife Anna Margaretha died in route.
Johannes Walger, a tailor, and his siblings (Johann Heinrich, age 18; [Anna] Margaretha, age 15) settled in the Volga German colony of Ernestinendorf on 3 August 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 44.
In 1784, Heinrich Walger and his family moved from Ernestinendorf to Fischer.
The 1767 census records that Johannes Walger came from the German village of Hattenbach.
Some sources have translated this surname to be Walter or Walker, but those are believed to be incorrect.
- 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): Er10, Er11, Fs07, Mv0568.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 406.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3901.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5941-5944.
Brent Mai