Apitz / Opitsch*
Christoph Apitz, a farmer, his wife Anna, and daughter Anna (age 14) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 10 August 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Nikolaus Peter Pink.
Johan Christoph Apitz, his wife Anna Maria, and daughter Anna Maria (age 14) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that both wife and daughter died en route.
Widower Johann Christoph Opitsch [sic] is recorded on an appendix to the 1767 census of Paulskaya in Household No. 134 along with a note that he relocated to the Volga German colony of Biberstein in 1768.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Johann Christoph Apitz/Opitsch came from the German region of Halle.
There do not appear to be any surviving male descendants of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 376.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: State Technical University, 2010): #4429.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5406-5408.
Brent Mai