Gilau
Maria Katharina Gilau, daughter of Philipp Christian & Maria Katharina Gilau, was baptized on 2 February 1762 in Wolfenhausen.
There are 3 Gilau families that arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 4 July 1766 aboard the ship Die Neue Freiheit von Bremen under the command of Skipper Steingrawer. Each of them settled in the Volga German colony of Warenburg on 12 May 1767.
(1) Johann Pilau [sic], a farmer, and his wife Katharina Elisabeth arrived in Oranienbaum. Johannes Gilau, a farmer, and his wife Katharina Elisabeth are recorded on the 1767 census of Warenburg in Household No. 143.
(2) Christian Kühlthau [sic], a farmer, his wife Maria Katharina, and daughter Anna Margaretha (age 1) arrived in Oranienbaum. Christian Gilau, a farmer, and his wife Maria Katharina are recorded on the 1767 census of Warenburg in Household No. 158.
(3) Widow Maria Kühlthau [sic] and her children (Anna Maria, age 15; Johann Georg, age 13) arrived in Oranienbaum. Maria Katharina (remarried to Johann Georg Krickau) is recorded on the 1767 census of Warenburg in Household No. 156 along with her children (Anna Maria Gilau, age 16; Johann Georg Gilau, age 13).
The 1767 census records that all three of these families came from the German village of Wolfenhausen in the region of Runkel. The Oranienbaum passenger errantly translated the surname of Gilau as Pilau and Kühlthau.
- 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): Wr045, Wr103.
- Parish register of Wolfenhausen (LDS Film No. 1195145).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 343, 345.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1986, #2016, #2021.
Brent Mai
Wayne Bonner