Wolfgang Diederich Bien, son of Johannes Bien, was born on 7 October 1744 in Lieblos and baptized on 11 October 1744.
Wolf Dietrich Biehn, a single man, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 August 1766 aboard the pink Slon under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
He settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767. He is recorded there along with his new wife Katharina on the 1767 census in Household No. 13.
Wolf Dietrich Biehn and his family are recorded on the 1775 census of Norka in Household No. 115.
Wolf Biehl [erroneously recorded as Pan] is recorded on the 1798 census of Norka in Household No. Nr120.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Wolf Dietrich Biehn was a farmer while the 1767 census records that he was a craftsman (Handwerker). Both documents record that he came from the German district of Isenburg.
- 1775 Norka Census (Household No. 115).
- 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): Nr105, Nr120.
- Parish records of Gründau.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 231.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4069.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai