Balthasar Grünkorn, a farmer, his wife Margaretha, and children (Adam, age 10; Katharina, age 5; Margaretha, age 2) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 18 August 1766 aboard the galliot named St. Johannes (Saint John) under the command of Skipper Carstens Stahl.
Balthasar Grünkorn, his [new] wife Eva Elisabeth, children (Johann Adam, age 10; Katharina, age 5), and [step-]children [surname not recorded] (Margaretha, age 10; Joh. George, age 6) are recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that daughter Katharina died in route.
Balthasar Jerkop [sic], a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, son (Johann Adam, age 12), and [step-]daughter Margaretha [surname not recorded] (age 11) are recorded on the 1767 census of Semenovka in Household No. 25. They had arrived in Semenovka on 24 July 1767.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Balthasar Grünkorn came from the German region of Fulda. The 1767 census records that Balthasar Jerkop [sic] came from the German village of Robsteis [?] in the Fulda region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Grünkorn 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): 793.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 184.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6350.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #8137-8142.
Brent Mai