The Wolferborn parish register records that Johann Michael Kaiser, son of Johann Kaiser of Michelau, married in Wolferborn on 12 March 1711 to Elisabetha Schneider, daughter of Johann Melchior Schneider of Michelau. Among their children was Johann Thomas, who was baptized on 19 August 1725.
Thomas Kaiser, a farmer, and his wife Anna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 29 July 1766 aboard a ship named Apollo under the command of Skipper Friedrich Detloff Mörenberg traveling with Johann Kaiser, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and servants Ernest (age 20) and Magdalena (age 20).
Thomas Kaiser (age 40), a farmer, his wife Christina (age 20), and his wife's sister Anna Maria [surname not recorded] (age 12) are recorded on the 1767 census of Norka in Household No. 108. Just Kaiser (age 34), a farmer, and his wife Magdalena (age 22) are recorded on the 1767 census of Norka in Household No. 107. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between these two Kaiser families.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that both of these Kaiser families came from the German region of Isenburg.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Kaiser family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 624.
- Parish register of Wolferborn.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 257.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5010, #5011.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai