Johann Philipp Becker and his wife Louisa Elisabeth arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum aboard the hooker Die Jungfer Dietrika under the command of skipper Christian Korsholm on 14 August 1766.
Johann Philipp Bäcker, his new wife Johannette, and her children Georg Bauer (age 16) and Katharina Bauer (age 8) settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 26 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census of Norka in Household No. 180. Johanette was the widow of Georg Bauer.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Philipp Becker was a cobbler from the German region of Pfalz while the 1767 Census records that he was a craftsman (Handwerker) from the German region of Kurpfalz.
Through the years, this surname has taken a variety of spellings including Backer, Becker, and Baker.
There do not appear to be any surviving male descendants of this Becker family.
This is one of four apparently unrelated Bäcker families that settled in Norka.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 277.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5692.
Brent Mai