The marriage of Johann Friedrich Berger and widow Friederika Louisa Weylandt née Götz is recorded in the parish register of Coswig on 8 April 1766. It reads as follows:
8 April 1766 - Johann Friedrich Berger Mauermeister und kaiserl. Russischer Kolonist, weil. Joh. Friedrich Bergers Gastwirts in Kisterwitz bey Weissenfels nachgel. ehel. ältester Sohn und Fr. Friederika Louisa verwitwete Weylandt gebohrne Götz in hiesiger Kirche getrauet worden.
[translation: 8 April 1766 - Johann Friedrich Berger, master mason and imperial Russian colonist, surviving legitimate son of the late Joh. Friedrich Berger, innkeeper in Kisterwitz near Weissenfels, and the widowed Mrs. Friederika Louisa née Götz were married in the local church.]
Friedrich Berger, his wife Louisa, and [step-]son Ferdinand [Götz] (age 8) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a ship named Die Zwei Gebrüder (The Two Brothers) under the command of Skipper Nicolaus Peter Pinck.
Johann Friedrich Berger, his wife Louissa Hentriegetta [sic], and [step-]son Ferdinand [Götz] (age 8) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that the father Johann Friedrich Berger died in route.
The widow Louisa Berger remarried to Christian Hanke. Christian Hanke, a cobbler (Schuhmacher), his wife Louisa [widow of Johann Friedrich Berger], and stepson Wilhelm Ferdinand Götz (age 9) are recorded on the 1767 census of Orlovskaya in Household No. 14. They had arrived in Orlovskaya on 3 August 1767.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Berger family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 554.
- Oranienbaum passenger list #4336 [not included in the Kulberg List published by Igor Plehve].
- Parish register of Coswig.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 314.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5130-5132.
Brent Mai
Karl Becker
Dona Reeves-Marquardt
Entry from the parish register of Coswig recording the marriage on 8 April 1766 of Johann Friedrich Berger & Friederika Louisa.
Source: Karl Becker.