Christoph Betz, a miller (Мельникъ), his wife Dorothea, and sons (Joachim, age 3; Johann, age ¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Die Vergoldete Weintraube (The Guilded Grape) under the command of Skipper Joachim Hermann Andersen.
Christoph Heinrich Benz, a miller (Müller), and his [new?] wife Anna Margaretha settled in the Volga German colony of Jost on 19 July 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 32 along with stepsons Lorenz (age 17) and Daniel (age 16) [surnames not recorded].
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Christoph Betz came from the German region of Brandenburg. The 1767 census records that Christoph Heinrich Benz came from the German village of Rathenow in the Brandenburg region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Benz/Betz family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 826.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 202.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6617.
Brent Mai