Siblings Katharina and Lorenz Lauer (age 13) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Neptunus (Neptune) under the command of Skipper Johann Graap along with the Anton Bernhardt family.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Rothammel on 21 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 6. Anton Bernhardt is recorded as their stepfather, but neither Anton nor his wife Barbara are old enough to be their parent, so there must have been earlier marriages for one or both of them.
Katharina Appelhans née Lauer and her family are recorded on the 1798 census of Rothammel in Household No. Rt03.
Lorenz Lauer and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Rothammel in Household No. Rt19.
The death of Lorenz Lauer in 1817 is recorded on the 1834 census of Rothammel in Household No. 9.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Katharina Lauer came from the German region of Nassau.
- 1834 Rothammel Census (Household No. 9).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 741.
- 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): Rt03, Rt19.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 82.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5931, #5932.
Brent Mai