Mattias Grafar, a weaver (Weber), and his wife Dorothea arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a ship named Die Zwei Gebrüder (The Two Brothers) under the command of Skipper Nicolaus Peter Pinck.
Mathias Graffa [sic], his wife Dorothea, and newborn son Joh. Heinrich are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Katharinenstadt on 3 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 154 along with son Johann (age 1).
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Mattias Gafar came from France. The 1767 census records that Mattias Grafar came from the French village of Lavans [?].
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- 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): 559.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 308.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4384.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5702-5704.
Brent Mai