Klein (Balzer)
Jacob Klein, son of Johann Jacob Klein & Anna Dorothea Pflantz, was born 21 July 1721 and baptized 22 July 1721 in Becherbach. Maria Margaretha Fickkinger, daughter of Johann Adam Fikkenger [sic] & Eva Elisabetha Horbachs, was born 25 December 1721 in Becherbach.
Johann Jakob Klein & Maria Margaretha Fickkinger were married in June 1744 in Becherbach. They had at least the following children: (1) Johann Jacob, born 31 January 1745 in Becherbach, baptized 4 February 1745; (2) Philipp Henrich, born 27 May 1750 in Pfalzheim, died 31 May 1750 in Pfalzheim; (3) Susanna Margaretha Charlotte, born 25 October 1753 in Pfalzheim, baptized 1 November 1753; and (4) Henrich Peter, born 28 September 1756 in Pfalzheim, baptized 3 October 1756.
Jakob Klein, a farmer, his wife Maria Margaretha, and children (Jakob, age 19; Heinrich Peter, age 8; Susanna Margaretha, age 8) immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) arriving in Flensburg on 22 May 1762 along with Jakob's sister Maria Margaretha who had been born in January 1736 in Becherbach.
Maria Margaretha Klein née Fickkinger died 24 March 1764 in Jörl, and Johann Jakob Klein remarried on 28 August 1764 in Jörl to Dorothea Simon, widow of Michael Heintz. Dorothea Simon, daughter of Bernard & Katharina Simon, had been baptized 23 March 1735 in Oberderdingen. Jakob Klein & Dorothea Simon had a son while in Denmark: Johannes who was baptized in Lübeck on 15 May 1765.
They requested release 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.
Father Jakob Klein, a farmer, his wife Dorothea, and children (Susanna Margaretha, age 14; Heinrich Peter, age 11; Maria Margaretha, age 6; and Maria Katharina, age 6-weeks) are recorded on the 1767 census of Balzer in Household No. 30.
Jakob's son Jakob Klein, a farmer, and his wife Anna (Maria) Barbara [Heckmann, daughter of Johann Adam Heckmann & Anna Maria Schellenberger,] are recorded on the 1767 census of Balzer in Household No. 36. [See Heckmann Family.]
In 1790, Georg Philipp Klein moved from Balzer to Stahl am Tarlyk.
The Eichhorns record that Jakob Klein was a farmer from Baden-Baden, but that he spent the preceding 15 years in the region of Brandenburg before moving to Denmark.
The 1767 census records that this Klein family came from the German region of Baden-Baden.
- 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-823.
- Hacker, Werner. Auswanderungen aus Rheinpfalz und Saarland im 18. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: K. Theiss, 1987): 471.
- 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): Bz058, Bz067, St45, Mv0060.
- Parish register of Beckerbach.
- Parish register of Jörl (Denmark).
- Parish register of Reihen.
- Parish register of Pfalzheim.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 80, 81.
- Thode, Ernst. Palantine Migrations to Brandenburg and Pomerania (Penobscot Press, 2009): 48.
Brent Mai
Wayne Bonner