Lerch (Schäfer-2)*

Rudolph Lerch, a farmer, his wife Susanna, and sons (Peter, age 14; Jakob, age 5) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 15 September 1766 aboard the galliot Adler under the command of Skipper Paul Adam Drath.

Rudolph Lerch is recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.

Rudolph Lerch, a farmer, and his [new] wife Elisabeth, widow of Johann Nikolaus, is recorded on the 1767 census of Schäfer in Household No. 53. They had settled in Schäfer on 30 August 1767.

Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Rudolph Lerch came from the German region of Zweibrücken.

There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.