Valentin Hoffman was baptized on 2 August 1730 in Käfertal. He married Maria Barbara Botsch on 8 January 1754 in Feudenheim. Maria Barbara Botsch, daughter of Johann Georg & Eva Barbara Botsch, had been baptized 10 June 1733 in Freudenheim.
The baptisms of the following children to Valentin Hoffman & Maria Barbara Botsch are recorded in the parish register of Käfertal: (1) Anna Catharina, baptized 9 May 1755; (2) Margaretha, baptized 19 May 1759; and (3) Anna Catharina, baptized 8 September 1760.
The Eichhorns record that Valentin Hoffmann, a farmer, his wife Maria Barbara, and daughters (Katharina, age 8; Anna Margaretha, age 4; Regina Barbara, age ¼) immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) arriving in Flensburg on 29 May 1762. However, the birth of Regina Barbara Hoffmann, daughter of Valentin & Maria Barbara Hoffmann, is recorded on 6 February 1763 in Hutup [Denmark]. Another daughter's birth, Susanna Catharina Elisabeth, is recorded in the parish register of Wanderup [Denmark] on 7 March 1765.
They were dismissed from the Danish colonies on 24 April 1765 and joined the migration to Russia.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Balzer on 28 March 1766 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 20.
The Eichhorns record that Valentin Hoffmann came from the German village of "Käferthal, Oberamt Mannheim, Kurpfalz."
- Eichhorn, Alexander, Jacob & Mary Eichhorn. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766 (Deiningen, Germany: Drukerei und Verlag Steinmeier GmbH & Co. Kg, 2012): B-670.
- Kreutzer, Rudolf. Ortsfamilienbuch Feudenheim 1650-1900 (Mannheim: Waldkirch Verlag, 2008).
- 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): Bz049.
- Parish register of Feudenheim.
- Parish register of Hutup [Denmark].
- Parish register of Käfertal.
- Parish register of Wanderup [Denmark].
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 77.
Brent Mai
Wayne Bonner
Gary Martens