Michael Klein, his wife Anna, and children (Anton, age 19; anna, age 17; Katharina, age 13) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard a ship named Der Ringende Jacob (The Wrestling Jacob) under the command of Skipper Johann Heitmann.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Brabander on 28 August 1767 and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 14. The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Klein was a farmer while the 1767 census records that he was a cobbler (Schuhmacher).
Johann Klein from Brabander and his family are recorded on the 1834 census of Wittmann in Household No. 98.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Klein came from the German region of Köln. The 1767 census records that Michael Klein came from the German village of Kaltenborn in the Köln region.
- 1834 Wittmann Census (Household No. 98).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 527.
- 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): Bn50.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 218.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4119 (p. 268).
Brent Mai