März / Mertz (Walter)*
Anna Elisabetha Mertz, daughter of Johann Nicolaus Mertz & Anna Katharina Kraft, was born 31 March 1738 and baptized 3 April 1738 in Lißberg.
Anna Elisabetha had an illegitimate son Johann Conrad who was born in Lißberg 22 February 1761 and baptized 25 February 1761. The baptism record states that Daniel Friedrich Bautz was the child's father. Anna Elisabetha and Daniel Friedrich married in Lißberg in June 1761.
Daniel Friedrich Bautz, son of Andreas and Maria Catharina Bautz, had been baptized 19 November 1738 in Rudersberg, Oberamt Schorndorf, Württemberg.
Anna Elisabetha and Daniel Friedrich had a second child in Lißberg, a daughter Anna Sophia, who was born 21 September 1763 and baptized 25 September 1763.
The marriage of Anna Elisabetha Mertz from Lißberg & Johannes Asmus from Lißberg is recorded in the parish register of the Lutheran church in Büdingen on 25 June 1766.
The lists of the recruiter Johann Facius describe Anna Elisabetha's household of 4 individuals as follows: Anna Elisabetha Metz [sic], 27-years-old widow of Bautz from Lißberg, with one son 5-years-old and one daughter 3-years-old with mother Anna Catharina Metz [sic], widowed.
Johannes Asmus is reported separately, described as a 26-year-old farmer from Wallernhausen.
Johann Asmus, his wife Elisabeth, [step-]children (Johann Konrad [Bautz], age 5; Anna Sophia [Bautz], age 3), and his mother-in-law Anna Katharina [Mertz née Kraft] arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 13 September 1766 aboard the galliot Die Perle under the command of Skipper Thomson.
Wife [Anna] Elisabeth Bautz Asmus née Mertz, stepson Johann Konrad Bautz, and mother-in-law Anna Katharina Mertz née Kraft must have died in route from St. Petersburg to Saratov.
Johannes Asmus, a farmer, his [new] wife Julianna, [step-]daughter Sophia [Bautz] (age 5), and [step-]daughter Maria [surname not recorded] (age 2½) are recorded o nthe 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 71. They had arrived in Walter on 25 August 1767.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Mertz family among the Volga German colonies.
- List of those recruited by Johann Facius from 13 November 1765 to 18 February 1766.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt, German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #711.
- Parish register of Büdingen.
- Parish register of Lißberg.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 311.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6304.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai