Kratzke
Adam Friedrich Kratzke, a musical instrument maker (Musikinstrumentenbauer) from Ueckermünde in Prussian Pomerania, and his family settled in the Volga German colony of Kratzke on 7 August 1766. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 1. He was the mayor (Vorsteher) of the colony at that time, and the person after whom the colony was named.
At some point, he moved to the neighboring colony of Dietel. By the time of the 1798 census, he is recorded in Katharinenstadt in Household No. Ka084 living with his daughter and son-in-law.
There are no known surving male descendants of this Kratzke family, so the name does not continue among the Volga German colonies.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Ka084.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 449.
Brent Mai