Andreas Heller, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and children (Maria, age 12; Elisabeth, age 4; Susanna, age 1½; Johann [age illegible]) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 11 June 1766 aboard a ship named Der Junge Heinrich (The Young Henry) under the command of Skipper Heinrich Niemann.
The widow of Andreas Heller is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that she died in route.
Mattias Bäcker (age 30), a farmer, and his wife Henrietta (age 40) are recorded on the 1767 census of Straub in Household No. 42 along with Johann Christoph Heller (age 11) and his sister Maria Katharina Heller (age 14), the orphaned children of Andreas Heller. Also recorded in this household is the single and deaf Wilhelm Steinmetz (age 27). They had arrived in Straub on 12 July 1767. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Bäcker, Heller, and Steinmetz families.
The 1798 census of Jost records Christoph Heller in Household No. Jo22.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Andreas Heller came from the German region of Nassau.
- 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): 284.
- 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): Jo22.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 239.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2067.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1696.
Brent Mai