Melchior Gretsch arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 20 August 1766 aboard a ship named Der Friede (Peace) under the command of Skipper Hans Karck.
Melchior Gretsch is recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Johann Melchior Gretsch, a single cobbler (Schuhmacher), is recorded on the 1767 census of Katharinenstadt in Household No. 191 working as a day laborer (Lohnarbeiter). He had arrived in Katharinenstadt on 3 August 1767.
The 1767 census records that Johann Melchior Gretsch came from the German village of Weißenfeld.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Gretsch 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): 873.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 315.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: State Technical University, 2010): #7115.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #3961.
Waldemar Kurt
Brent Mai