Widower Mathias Pretz married on 23 May 1713 in Heimersheim to Susanna Veith, daughter of Johannes Veith of Gumbsheim.
The parish register of St. Mauritius Catholic Church in Heimersheim records the baptism of the following children born to Mathias Pretz & Susanna Veith: (1) Peter, baptized 11 March 1714; (2) Anna Elisabetha, baptized 27 September 1717; (3) Maria Margaretha, baptized 10 May 1720, died 9 January 1723; (4) Johann Jacob, baptized 29 November 1722; (5) Bruno, baptized 9 May 1726; (6) Johann Philipp, born in February 1828, died 6 March 1728; and (7) Valentin, baptized 3 November 1729.
Valentin Bretz, a tailor (Schneider) from Heimersheim in the Mid-Pfalz, & Ottilie Rohner from Vogtstadt near Hamelburg were married on 12 May 1766 in the Lutheran Church of Büdingen.
Valentin Bretz, a farmer, and his wife Ottilia arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a barque named Fortitudo (Fortitude) under the command of Skipper John Scott.
Valentin Pretz [sic] (age 37), a farmer, and his wife Ottilia Römer (age 26) are recorded on the 1767 census of Köhler in Household No. 65. They had arrived in Köhler on 21 August 1767.
In 1788, Franz Bretz moved from Köhler to Kamenka.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Valentin Bretz came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that Valentin Bretz came from the German village of Mannheim.
- 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): 483.
- 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): Km076, Kl66, Kl73, Mv1312.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt, German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #632.
- Parish register of St. Mauritius Catholic Church in Heimersheim.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 376.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3783.
Brent Mai
Anonymous2