Several translation errors have created a difficult documented history for the Benner family that settled in Walter.
Konrad Benner [erroneously recorded as Binder], a farmer, his wife Magdalena, and sons (Johann, age 15; Johann Nikel [sic], age 10½; Wilhelm, age 5) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Frau Diederika (Lady Diederika) under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Lunau.
Konrad Benner's widow Magdalena and their sons (Johann, age 16; Nikolaus, age 11; Wilhelm, age 6) are recorded on the 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 44 [surname erroneously translated as Becker]. They had arrived in Walter on 25 August 1767.
The descendants of this family also had their surname of Benner erroneously translated as Becker on the 1798 census of Walter in Households No. Wt030, Wt066, and Wt067.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Konrad Benner came from the German region of Hanau. The 1767 census records that Magdalena Benner came from the German village of Rossdorf.
- 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): 757.
- 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): Wt030, Wt066, Wt067.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 305.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6059.
Brent Mai
Michael Fyler
Entry from the Oranienbaum passenger list recording the arrival in Russia of Konrad Benner [recorded as Binder] and his family (#6059).
Source: Brent Mai.