Johann Besterling [sic], a single farmer, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the snow-brig named Maria Sophia under the command of Skipper Johann Bauert.
Johann Joachim Pisterling, a farmer, settled in the Volga German colony of Stahl am Tarlyk on 19 August 1767 and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 75.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Besterling came from the German region of Zellhausen. The 1767 census records that Johann Joachim Pisterling came from the German colony of Zechow in the Brandenburg region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 343.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 220.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2560.
Brent Mai