Johannes Ritter, son of Johannes Ritter & Anna Maria Dehmer, was baptized 10 August 1713 in Orb. He married on 14 June 1739 in St. Martin's Church in Orb to Anna Catharina Pfeifer, daughter of Johannes Pfeifer & Anna Eck. Anna Catharina Pfeifer had been born in Orb on 24 April 1719.
The baptism of the following children of Johannes Ritter & Anna Catharina Pfeifer are recorded in the St. Martin's parish register in Orb: (1) Anna Catharina, baptized 23 March 1740; (2) Johannes Jacob, baptized 11 December 1741; (3) Maria Barbara, baptized 15 January 1744; (4) Anna Margaretha, baptized 17 October 1746, died 20 June 1747; (5) Johann Jacob, baptized 23 May 1748, died 5 September 1758; (6) Johannes, baptized 4 August 1750; (7) Valentin, baptized 31 October 1753, died before 8 July 1756; (8) Johannes Heinrich, baptized 9 August 1756, died before 20 August 1756; (9) Christina, baptized 13 April 1758; and (10) unnamed child, stillborn 24 January 1761. Father Johannes died 27 July 1762 in Orb.
Widow [Anna] Katharina Ritter, son Jacob & his wife Anna, son Johann[es] (age 15), and daughter Christina (age 8) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 10 August 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Nikolaus Peter Pink.
Catharina Ritter and her children (Johannes, age 16; Eisabeth, age 8) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767, but she has not been located among the Volga German colonies. Also recorded on this list are Jacob Ritter and his wife Anna Maria.
Also with them on the ship was Maria Theresia Magdalena Ritter, daughter of Johannes Heinrich Ritter [brother of the above noted deceased Johannes Ritter] & his first wife Susanna Mockstadt, whose baptism is also recorded on the St. Martin's parish register in Orb on 26 January 1749. Magdalena Ritter is recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767, but she has not been located among the Volga German colonies.
Jakob Ritter, a farmer, his wife Maria, and brother Johannes (age 18) are recorded on a list of Beauregard recruits attached to the 1767 census in Household No. 52.
Oldest daughter [Anna] Katharina Ritter is believed to also have arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 10 August 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Nikolaus Peter Pink along with her husband Adam Bauer [also from Orb]. They are recorded on a list of Beauregard recruits attached to the 1767 census in Household No. 113 along with Anna Katharina's younger sister Christina (age 12).
In 1794, Johann Reuter [sic] and his family moved from Luzern to Wittmann.
The death of Jakob Ritter at the age of 59 is recorded on 13 May 1802 in the parish register of Luzern.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that this Ritter family came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that they came from the German village of Orb.
Later generations of this family use the spelling of Ruder.
- Kertel, Karola. Ortsfamilienbuch Bad Orb. [Online]
- 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): Lz42, Wm15.
- Parish register of Luzern.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 359.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4260, #4261, #4262, #4269.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5775-5777, #5780-5781, #5788.
Brent Mai
Pre-Volga Origin
Immigration Locations
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