Heinrich Paul Michel, a farmer, and his wife Katharina 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.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Dietel where they are recorded on the 1798 census in Household No. Dt65.
In 1793, Johann Wendel Michel moved from Dietel to Bauer.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Paul Michel came from the German region of the Pfalz. Andreas Idt and Georg Rauschenbach report that Heinrich Paul Michel came from the German village of Wallertheim.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach, "Die Berufer."
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 735.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Dt65, Dt66, Mv0413.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5881.
Brent Mai
Wladimir Böhm