Johann Braun, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children [some evidently step-children] (Johann [Heinrich Werner], age 17; Elisabeth, age 14; Nikolaus [Werner], age 12; Konrad, age 10) arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oraninenbaum on 12 September 1766 aboard the Love & Unity under the command of Thomas Fairfax.
Joh. Peter Braunn [sic], his wife Anna Margaretha, daughter Elisabeth (age 16), and [step-]children (Heinrich Werner, age 17½; Nicolaus Werner, age 12) are recorded on a list of colonists being transported from Oranienbaum to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that both parents and [step-]son Nicolaus Werner died in route.
Orphan Anna Barbara [sic] Braun (age 16) is recorded on an appendix to the 1767 census of Paulskaya in Household No. 27 along with the Johann Philipp Giest family with whom they were travelling to both Oranienbaum and Saratov.
Because the Braun and Giest families were travelling together and because [step-]son Heinrich Werner settled in the Volga German colony of Kind, it is assumed that the Giest family also settled in Kind along with orphan Anna Barbara Braun.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Braun came from the German region of Darmstadt.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Braun family among the Volga German colonies.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 357.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5365.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #2928-2932.
Brent Mai