Michael Mertz, his wife Katharina, son Johann (age 1), and mother Jakobina arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a galliot named Die Börse von Lübeck under the command of Skipper Martin Friedrich Markau.
Wigoleus [sic] Mertz, his wife Maria Catrina, and mother Maria Jacobina are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Urbach on 3 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 52.
The 1798 census of Urbach records that in 1788 the Mertz family was living in Saratov and that as of 1798, Wigelius was living in Ernestinendorf with relatives, Michael was a miller in Huck and Friedrich was working in Pokrovsk [Engels].
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Mertz is a cobbler while the 1767 census records that he is a craftsman (Handwerker).
The 1767 census records that Michael Mertz came from the German village of Geidigem in the region of Mecklenburg.
- 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): Ur30.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 282.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2957.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #2186-2188.
Brent Mai
Pre-Volga Origin
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