Michael Nickel and his wife Maria Johanna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 15 August 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Drei Gebrüder (Three Brothers) under the command of Skipper Ludwig Münzenberg.
Michel Nickel and his wife Maria Johanna are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Leitsinger on 19 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 53.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Nickel was a stocking maker while the 1767 census records that he was a farmer.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Nickel came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that Michael Nickel came from the German village of Burglengenfeld in the Kurpfalz.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Nickel family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 725.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 72.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5789.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #6770-6771.
Brent Mai