Gottschalk Berges [sic], a single farmer, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Christina under the command of Skipper Jacob Stappenberg.
An unnamed Mr. Berger (age 55), a farmer, his wife [Jo]Anna Sophia [née Kühl] (age 37) [widow of both Johann Konrad Reimer & Georg Brunner], and stepchildren (Johanna Reimer, age 16; Konrad Reimer, age 11; and Dorothea Brunner, age 4) are recorded on the 1767 census of Reinwald in Household No. 17. They had arrived in Reinwald on 14 July 1766. [See Reimer & Brunner Families.]
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Gottschalk Berges [sic] came from the German region of Waldeck. The 1767 census records that this Mr. Berger came from the German village of Windeck.
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): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 408.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 34.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3163.
Brent Mai