Johann Befort, a weaver, his wife Maria, and sons (Adam, age 13; Heinrich, age 7; Franziscus, age 5¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 2 August 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
Johann Georg Befort, his wife Anna Maria, and sons (Hans Adam, age 13; Heinrich, age 7; Johann Heinrich, age 7-weeks) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Ober-Monjou and are recorded there on the 1798 census in Household No. Om67.
In 1775, Adam Befort moved from Ober-Monjou to Katharinenstadt.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Befort came from Luxembourg.
- 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): 682.
- 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): Om67, Mv2040.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5425.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #6797-6801.
Brent Mai