Andreas Bessinger, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and children (Margaretha, age 10; Philipp, age 4) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard the 2-masted merchant ship named Anna Katharina under the command of Skipper Adolph Scharpenberg.
Andreas Bessinger, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and daughter Elisabeth Margaretha (age 12) are recorded on the 1767 census of Preuss in Household No. 88 along with a note that they relocated to the colony of Straub in 1768. They had settled in Preuss on 15 July 1767.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Andreas Bessinger came from the German village of Florstadt. The 1767 census records that Andreas Bessinger came from the German village of Flurstedt.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Bessinger family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 428.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #844.
Brent Mai