Nikolaus Himmelhöfer, a farmer, his wife Anna, and daughter Anna (age 3) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard a barque named Der Junge Mattias (The Young Mattias) under the command of Skipper Johann Gottfried Selander.
Nikolaus Höfner [sic], a farmer, his wife Anna Marianna, and daughter Anna Maria (age 1) are recorded on the 1767 census of Kukkus in Household No. 23 along with Anna Maria Kaust (age 12), the orphaned daughter of Daniel Kaust. [See Kaust Family.] No relationship between the Höfner and Kaust families is recorded.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Nikolaus Himmelhöfer came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that Nikolaus Höfner [sic] came from the German village of Löhnfeld near Kurpfalz.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Himmelhöfer family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 435.
- Kukkus Website (www.kukkus.com) - Origins
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 467.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3385.
Brent Mai
Rick Felsing