Nikolaus Kisner, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children (Johann, age 14; Anna, age 5) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a galliot named Kronstadt under the command of Lieutenant Samuel Gibbs.
Nikolaus Kisner (age 39), a farmer, his wife Anna Maria (age 27), and children (Johann Adam, age 16; Anna Maria, age 7) are recorded on the 1767 census of Pfeifer in Household No. 103. They had arrived in Pfeifer on 15 June 1767.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Nikolaus Kisner came from the German village of Aufenau while the 1767 census records that Nikolaus Kisner came from the German region of Freiburg.
A Nicolaus Kisner has been located in the parish register of Aufenau, where records are available beginning in 1754.
The baptisms and deaths of several children of Nicolaus & Eva Kisner are recorded in the parish register of Aufenau: (1) Carl Franz, died September 1757 at age 3y7m; (2) Johann Adam, baptized 26 December 1755; (3) Anna Maria, baptized 2 December 1757, died 16 July 1758; (4) Caspar, baptized 26 July 1759, died 23 July 1763; and (5) Maria Eva, baptized 23 January 1762.
Eva Kisner died 11 August 1763 at age 35. Nikolaus Kisner remarried on 28 September 1763 to Christina Kalbert, daughter of Balthasar Kalbert & Catharina Schneider. She had been born 4 July 1727 in Mernes (parish of Oberndorf). She died 7 August 1764 in Aufenau by falling in the barn [ex lapsu de horreo].
There are Kis(t)ners recorded in Oberndorf, but no Nicolaus. The first marriage of a Kistner in Oberdorf records that he came from Geismar which is in Thuringia - but there is no Nicolaus recorded there either. There are no Kis(t)ners recorded in the parish registers of Salmünster Ulmbach, Wirtheim, or Bad Orb.
- 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): Pf42, Pf68, Pf93.
- Parish register of Salmünster (including Aufenau).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 401.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2886.
Brent Mai
Max Weinbinder
Entry from the parish register of Salmünster recording the baptism of Johann Adam Kisner on 26 December 1755 who had been born in Aufenau.
Source: Max Weinbinder.