The following baptisms for the children of Balthasar & Anna Dietz from Oberreichenbach are recorded in the parish records of nearby Unterreichenbach: (1) Anna Eva, baptized 9 October 1750; (2) Anna Catharina, baptized 16 December 1751; (3) Jacob, baptized 23 January 1754; and (4) Lorenz, baptized 22 May 1759.
The family immigrated to Russia, arriving at the port of Oranienbaum from Lübeck on 19 July 1766 aboard the snow-brig named Christina under the command of Skipper Jacob Stappenberg.
Balthasar Dietz, a farmer, his [new] wife Elisabeth [widow of Christoph Kopf], and sons (Johann Jakob, age 14; Lorenz, age 9) are recorded on the 1767 census of Huck in Household No. 45 along with his step-daughter Maria Elisabeth Kopf (age 18). They had arrived in Huck on 1 July 1767.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Balthasar Dietz came from the German region of Isenburg.
- 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): Hk28.
- Parish register of Unterreichenbach.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 151.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3123.
Brent Mai
Fabian Zubia-Schultheis