Johann Balthasar Ickes, son of Johannes Ickes (1712-1784) & Anna Maria Wagener (1711-1788), was born 1 June 1740 in Altenstadt, just west of Büdingen.
The parish register of Büdingen records the marriage of his sister Anna Maria Ickes, daughter of the deceased Johannes Ickes from Alstadt [sic], to Johannes Niedenthal, son of Peter Niedenthal from Eckertshausen, on 10 May 1766.
Balthasar, his sister, and her new husband arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the snow-brig named Christina under the command of Skipper Jacob Stappenberg.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Kutter on 8 July 1767 where Balthasar and his new bride ([Anna] Elisabeth Schneider) are recorded on the 1767 census in Household No. 7. Peter & Anna Maria Niedenthal are recorded there in Household No. 9.
Balthasar Ickes and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Kutter in Household No. Kt16.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Balzer [sic] Ickes came from the German village of Friedberg (a village near Büdingen).
- 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): Kt16.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #629.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 477, 478.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3175, #3193.
Brent Mai