Johann Ernst Gerlach married on 10 February 1752 in Meerholz to Anna Margaretha Heeg. She had been born there on 15 November 1727.
The baptisms of six children are recorded in the Meerholz records: (1) Johann Georg, born 21 March 1753; (2) Georg Philipp, born 5 May 1755; (3) an unnamed daughter born 4 February 1758; (4) Anna Catharina, born 20 April 1759; (5) Anna Elisabeth, born 10 April 1762, died 16 October 1764; and (6) Ernst Heinrich, born 4 June 1765.
Johann Ernst Gerlach, a farmer, his wife Anna Margaretha, and children (Johann Georg, age 13; Georg Philipp, age 11; Anna Katharina, age 8) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a pink named Новая Двинка (New Dvinka [a river in Russia]) under the command of Lieutenant Ivan Perepechin. They were traveling with Kaspar Brickmann who is identified as a servant of Ernst Gerlach.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 124 along with a note that they relocated to the colony of Anton in 1768.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Ernst Gerlach came from the German region of Isenburg.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 495.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Nr048, Nr081, Nr186.
- Parish register of Meerholz.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 262.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3885.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai