Three Ehrfurt families from Köthen settled among the Volga German colonies. Their relationship to each other, if any, needs further research.
(1) Karl Erfurt, a farmer, his wife Eleonora, and son Ludwig (age ¼) from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English barque named George under the command of Skipper Adam Bairnsfair.
Carl Erffurt [sic] and his wife Eleonora are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Karl Gottfried Ehrfurt, a farmer, and his family are recorded on the 1767 census of Orlovskaya in Household No. 8. They had arrived in Orlovskaya on 7 June 1767.
Karl Gottfried Ehrfurt (age 33), a farmer, and his wife Sophie Eleonora [surname not recorded] (age 37) are recorded on the 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] in Household No. 118 along with a note that they were on leave [beurlaubt] in Kazan.
In 1776, Karl Gottfried Ehrfurt and his wife moved from Orlovskaya to Moscow.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that this Ehrfurt family came from the German village of Köthen. The 1776 Katharinenstadt Land Register records that he came from the German village of Barby in Sachsen (Saxony) and that his wife came from the German village of Bernburg in the region of Anhalt.
(2) Widow Katharina Ehrfurt and her children (Heinrich, age 21; Maria, age 19) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English barque named George under the command of Skipper Adam Bairnsfair.
Widow Catharina Maria Erfurt and her children (Gottfried, age 21; Christiana Mari., age 19) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that mother Catharina Maria died en route.
Heinrich Gottfried Erfurt is recorded on the 1767 census of Orlovskaya in Household No. 86. They had arrived in Orlovskaya on 7 June 1767.
The death of Heinrich Ehrfurt in 1833 is recorded on the 1834 census of Orlovskaya in Household No. 17.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that this Ehrfurt family came from the German village of Köthen.
(3) Siegmund Ehrfurt, a single hunter (Jäger), arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 12 May 1766 aboard the galliot Anna Catharina under the command of Skipper Daniel Geier.
Sigm. Lud. Ehrfurt is recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Ludwig Ehrfurt, a single hunter (Jäger), and his sister Christina Maria (age 19) are recorded on the 1767 census of Orlovskaya in Household No. 1 along with a note that they relocated to the colony of Katharinenstadt in in 1768. They had arrived in Orlovskaya on 7 June 1767.
Gottlieb Beratz reports that "the elder Erfurt from Orlovskaya" was chosen, along with Pastor Wernborner, to lead the expedition to rescue the colonists who had been captured by the Kirghiz.
Widow Johanna Sophia Ehrfurt (age 22) [perhaps née Knoll; presumed widow of Ludwig Ehrfurt] is recorded on the 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] in Household No. 48 along with a note that she had deserted the colony in 1775. [See Knoll Family.]
Christina Maria Knoll née Ehrfurt (age 23) is recorded on the 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] in Household No. 25 as the wife of David Knoll along with a note that David Knoll died in 1778 and she remarried to Johannes Roth in 1779. [See Knoll and Roth Families.]
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Siegmund Ehrfurt came from Anhalt Köthen. The 1767 census records that Ludwig Ehrfurt came from the German region of Anhalt. The 1776 Katharinenstadt Land Register records that Christina Maria Knoll née Ehrfurt came from the German village of Köthen in the region of Anhalt and that widow Johanna Sophia Ehrfurt came from the German village of Oranienbaum in the region of Anhalt-Dessau.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Ehrfurt family that settled in Katharinenstadt among the Volga German colonies.
- 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] (Households No. 25, 48, 118).
- 1834 Orlovskaya Census (Household No. 17, 18, 29, 79, 125, 126, 149).
- Beratz, Gottlieb. The German Colonists on the Lower Volga: Their Origin and Early Development (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991): 216.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29, 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 64, 187, 188.
- 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): Or12, Mv2135.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 311, 313, 329.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1242, #1249.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0497-0498, #0507-0509, #0161.
Brent Mai