Wilhelm Köhler, a butcher (Fleischer), his wife Anna Maria, and children (Katharina, age 20; Konrad, age 7) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Frau Diederika (Lady Diederika) under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Lunau.
Wilhelm Köhler, a craftsman (Handwerker), arrived in the Volga German colony of Norka on 2 September 1767. He is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 210 along with his [new] wife, Eva Sophia, and son Christoph (age 1-week). An orphan, Konrad Neun (age 7), is also recorded in the household. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Köhler and the Neun families, and it is possible that this Konrad Neun is the same Konrad that is recorded arriving in Oranienbaum as Wilhelm's son.
Son Christoph Köhler and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Norka in Household No. Nr003.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Wilhelm Köhler came from the German region of Isenburg. The Norka Origins website records that Wilhelm Köhler was the son of Christoph Köhler and that he came from the village of Wenings.
- 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): 762.
- 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): Nr003.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 286.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6099.
- Wilhelm and Eva Sophia Köhler (Norka Website)
Brent Mai