Maria Katharina Gilau, daughter of Philipp Christian & Maria Katharina Gilau, was baptized on 2 February 1762 in Wolfenhausen.
Three Gilau families arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 14 June 1766 aboard the ship named Die Neue Fortuna (The New Fortune) under the command of Skipper Ahrens Steingraber. Each of them arrived 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.
Johann Kilau [sic] is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
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 along with servant Jakob Heiland.
Christian Gilau is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
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 Catharina Gilau is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
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 Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Kilau [sic] came from the German region of Runkel. 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.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 273, 277, 278.
- 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.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1755, #1779, #1783.
Brent Mai
Wayne Bonner