Johann Nikolaus Dorsch was born about 1743 in Breitenbrunn, southeast of Höchst im Odenwald. He immigrated to Russia.
At the immigrant gathering point in Büdingen, he married on 30 June 1766 to Anna Margaretha Eichmann, the presumed sister of Johann Michael Eichmann who also got married that same day.
Nikolaus Dorsch, a farmer, and his wife Anna Margaretha arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Frau Diederika (Lady Diederika) under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Lunau.
They arrived in the Volga German colony of Schwab on 12 September 1767. With them was one-year-old son Johann Michael. They are recorded on the 1767 census of Schwab in Household No. 36.
Nikolaus Dorsch had died by the time that the 1798 census of Schwab was taken. His widow had remarried a Ludwig Gross, and they are recorded there in Household No. Sb30. Son Johann Michael Dorsch is recorded in Household No. Sb44.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Nikolaus Dorsch came from the German region of Erbach.
- Gieg, Ella. Auswanderung aus dem Odenwaldkreis Band 1 (Lutzelbach, Germany: Gieg, 1988): 94.
- Gieg, Ella. "Neue Erkenntnisse zur Auswanderung nach Russland 1766" (Rimhorn: E. Gieg, 2007).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 760.
- 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): Sb30, Sb44.
- 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): #723.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 135.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6084.
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Brent Mai