Pastor Ludwig Helm was one of a handful of pastors who immigrated from Germany to Russia during the initial migration period (1764-1767).
He had been born in the village of Teschow in the Mecklenburg region. He studied theology in Rostock and was orgained in 1738. He married Anna Sophia, a citizen of Bünsow although originally from Biendorf.
He served the parishes of Biendorf (1738-1751) and Mecklenburg (1751-1766) before joining the migration to Russia.
Pastor Helm, his wife Anna Sophia, and children (Christoph Mathias, Sophia Regina Karolina, Katharina Eleonora, Henrietta, Maria, August, Christina, and Sophia) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 18 July 1766 aboard the Russian packet-boat named Lebed (Swan) under the command of Lieutenant Timofey Yelchin.
Pastor Helm served the congregation in Rosenheim and surrounding parishes from 1767 until his death in 1785, presumably in Rosenheim.
Arriving aboard the same ship with Pastor Helm was Christian Heinrich Helm, a single man, assumed to be one of Pastor Helm's older sons. Christian Heinrich settled in the Volga German colony of Grimm and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 23 along with his new wife Anna Maria [Rausch].
Widow Katharina [sic] Helm and her children are recorded on the 1775 census of Grimm in Household No. 108.
Following the death of Christian Heinrich Helm, widow Anna Maria remarried to Georg Arnst from Messer. The combined Arnst/Helm family is recorded on the 1798 census of Kolb in Household No. Ko49 with a note that Christian Helm and his family are in Grimm and Johann Heinrich Helm is in Yagodnaya Polyana.
Christian Helm and his brother Heinrich Helm are recorded on the 1811 census of Kolb in Household No. 49 along with a note that Heinrich Helm relocated to the colony of Yagodnaya Polyana [year not recorded].
The 1767 census of Grimm records that Christian Heinrich Helm came from the German region of Pommern (Pomerania). Teschow is located in what today is the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania).
- 1775 Grimm Census (Household No. 108).
- 1811 Kolb Census (Household No. 49).
- 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): Ko49.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 76.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2680, #2683.
Brent Mai