Widow Anna Pastern and her children (Anna, age 14; Margaretha, age 12; Johann, age 9; Philipp, age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 7 May 1766 aboard the galliot named Anna Katharina under the command of Skipper Daniel Heyer. Widow Pastern's maiden name appears to be Pracht. [See Pracht Family.]
In Russia, she married Johann Kaspar Leitner and they settled in the Volga German colony of Katharinenstadt. Their combined families are recorded on the 1767 census in Household No. 4 with one of her daughters already married and recorded in Household No. 120.
Heinrich Ludwig Weigel and his wife Elisabeth née Pastern are recorded on the 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] in Household No. 164 along with a note that they have been in Kazan since 1773. [See Weigel Family.]
Both the Kuhlberg list and the 1767 census record this family as being from Grünberg. The 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] records that Elisabeth née Pastern came from the German village of Grünberg in the region of Hessen Darmstadt.
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] (Household No. 164).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 63.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 276, 302.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 37.
Brent Mai