Johann Heinrich Engel, son of Johann Peter Engel & Anna Catharina Weitzel, was born in Lissberg in October 1726. He married on 16 February 1753 to Anna Elisabeth Gockscha, daughter of Peter Gockscha & Anna Margaretha Geisel. Anna Elisabeth had been born in Ortenberg on 4 May 1725.
The births of seven children to Johann Heinrich Engel & Anna Elisabeth Weitzel are recorded in the Ortenberg parish register: (1) a stillborn daughter, born 1 May 1753; (2) Elisabetha Margaretha, born 19 March 1757; (3) Johann Adam, born 31 October 1758, died 29 January 1759; (4) Anna Catharina, born 30 November 1759; (5) Anna Angelica, born 24 October 1761; (6) Anna Margaretha, born 5 March 1764, died 10 March 1764; and (7) Anna Maria, born 13 March 1765.
Johann Heinrich Engel, a butcher (Fleischer), his wife Anna Elisabeth, and daughters (Elisabeth, age 11; Katharina, age 7; Angelina, age 4; Anna Maria, age 3) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 18 August 1766 aboard the galliot named St. Johannes (Saint John) under the command of Skipper Carstens Stahl.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Walter on 25 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 24.
Anna Maria Engel is recorded on the 1798 census of Walter in Household No. Wt043.
Angelina Engel is recorded on the 1798 census of Walter in Household No. Wt044.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Heinrich Engel came from the German region of Hanau. The 1767 census records that Johann Engel came from the German village of Ortenberg near Stolberg.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Engel family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 793.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Wt043, Wt044.
- Parish register of Ortenberg.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 300.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6349.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai