Johann Melchior Bauer, son of Georg Melchior & Susanna Bauer, was born 27 January 1704 in Feudenheim.
Johann Melchior Bauer married on 16 May 1731 in Mannheim to Eva Elisabeth Dunkel. The births of seven children are recorded in Feudenheim: (1) Luisa Susanne; born about 1732, died 4 April 1733; (2) Anna Susanne, born 14 February 1734; (3) Johann Ludwig, born 9 September 1736; (4) Christina, born 11 February 1739; (5) Agnesa, born 22 May 1741, died about 1747; (6) Susanna Catharina, born 10 May 1744; and (7) Leonhardt, born 27 February 1753.
Eva Elisabeth Dunkel evidently died, because on 26 June 1753 Johann Melchior Bauer remarried to Anna Barbara Krobbin. They had 3 children whose births are recorded in Feudenheim: (1) Eva Margaretha, born 20 October 1754; (2) Johann Jörg, 9 March 1757; and (3) Johann Caspar, born 21 January 1760.
Christina Bauer (born 1739 above) married on 27 June 1758 in Ladenburg to Jakob Busch. [See Busch Family.]
The birth of a daughter to Ludwig Bauer (born 1736 above) and his wife Eva Margaretha is recorded in Feudenheim: Susanna Catharina, baptized 4 May 1761.
Melchior Bauer, a farmer, his wife Barbara, his children, and his grandchildren immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) arriving in Flensburg on 29 May 1762.
They requested to be released from the Danish colonies on 24 April 1765 and joined the migration to Russia.
Melchior has not been located among the Volga German colonies. Son Ludwig Bauer, son Johannes Bauer, daughter Christina Busch née Bauer, and daughter Anna Susanna Bauer and their families settled in the Volga German colony of Balzer on 28 March 1766. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Households No. 3, 19, & 26.
The Eichhorns record that Melchior Bauer came from the German village of Käferthal in the Kurpfalz region.
- Eichhorn, Alexander, Jacob & Mary Eichhorn. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766 (Deiningen, Germany: Drukerei und Verlag Steinmeier GmbH & Co. Kg, 2012): B-61, B-62, B-63.
- 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): Bz002, Bz055, Bz102, Bz104, Bz107.
- Parish records of Feudenheim.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 72, 77, 79.
Wladimir Böhm
Brent Mai
Wayne Bonner