Kaspar Dietz, a farmer, his wife Maria, and children (Franz, age 13¼; Maria, age 7; Susanna, age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard a ship named Der Ringende Jacob (The Wrestling Jacob) under the command of Skipper Johann Heitmann.
Kaspar died and his widow Maria married Johannes Milling [Milgenk] and settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767. Maria also died, and Johannes Milling [Milgenk] remarried to widow Magdalena Bartel and they are recorded in Norka on the 1767 census in Household No. 118. Kaspar Dietz's surviving youngest daughter, Susanna (age 6), is also recorded in Household No. 118 on the 1767 census of Norka.
Susanna [Dietz] is recorded on the 1775 census of Norka in Household No. 6 as the [step-]daughter of Johannes Milgeig [sic].
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Kaspar Dietz came from the German region of the Pfalz.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Dietz family among the Volga German colonies.
- 1775 Norka Census (Household No.6).
- 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): 529.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 260.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4138 (p. 269).
Brent Mai