Gottfried Alfers [sic] (age 20), [servant of] Christian Schröder, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 7 August 1766 aboard the ship named Nordstern (North Star) under the command of Skipper Detlev Behling.
Christian Schröder and his wife Anna are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with servant Gottfried Alfers [sic].
Gottfried Altförst, a single farmer, settled in the Volga German colony of Seelmann on 24 August 1767. He is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 90.
The Oranienbaum passenger list does not record from where Gottfried Alfers [sic] came. The 1767 census records that Gottfried Altförst came from the German region of Magdeburg.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Altförst family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 664.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 165.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5276 (p.338).
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #2125.
Brent Mai