Hoffmann (Messer)*

Johann Balthasar Hoffman, son of Phillip Hoffman, was baptized on 21 June 1719 in Gründau. He had been born in Mittelgründau.

He married Anna Catharina (surname not recorded) on 29 March 1742.  The Gründau parish registers record the births of four chidren to this couple, each born in Mittelgründau: (1) Johann Michael, born 3 April 1743, died 5 February 1749; (2) Catharina, born 3 July 1745, died 14 Feb 1757; (3) Eva, born 8 February 1748, died 24 May 1756; and (4) Anna Margaretha, born 26 December 1750, died 31 May 1762.

The mother Anna Catharina died on 4 January 1751. On 8 June 1752, Balthasar remarried to Friederica Christina Maria Müller, daughter of Johannes Müller of Altenhaßlau. The births of four additional children are recorded: (1) Julianna, born 9 March 1757, died 16 May 1757; (2) Johannes, born 9 October 1758; (3) Elisabetha, died 31 May 1763; and (4) Elisabetha, born 18 August 1765.

Balthasar Hoffman, his wife Anna, and daughter Elisabeth (age 2¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.

Balthasar Hoffmann, a farmer [he is recorded in Gründau as a linen weaver], and his family settled in the Volga German colony of Messer on 18 June 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 54.

Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Balthasar Hoffmann came from the German region of Isenburg.

There are no known surviving male lines of this Hoffmann family among the Volga German colonies.