Christoph Thomas Hegele, a braid weaver (Bortenwirker), and his wife Sibilla arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 26 August 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Die Jäger (The Hunter) under the command of Skipper Gabriel Will.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Hölzel on 5 August 1767. Sibilla died there on 10 October 1767. Christoph Thomas Hegele is recorded in Hölzel on the 1767 census in Household No. 57.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Christoph Thomas Hegele came from the German region of Bernau. The 1767 census records that he came from the German region of Augsburg.
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): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 856.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 122.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6791.
Brent Mai