Rack (Leichtling)
Johannes Rack, son of Nicolaus Rack, married in Horbach on 14 February 1751 to Margaretha Kessler, daughter of Johannes Kessler. The civil registration of their marriage is recorded in Somborn on 19 January 1751.
Johannes Rack & Margaretha Kessler had five children who were born in Horbach. Their baptisms are recorded in the parish register of St. Anna Catholic Church in Somborn: (1) Christoph, baptized 31 March 1752, died 18 April 1752; (2) Maria Catharina, baptized 19 February 1753; (3) Maria Margaretha, baptized 11 October 1755, died 4 September 1758; (4) Anna Elisabeth, baptized 19 March 1758; and (5) Anna Margaretha, baptized 9 July 1760.
Margaretha Rack née Kessler died on 3 April 1761. The widowed Johannes Rack remarried on 28 June 1761 to Catharina Müller. The baptisms of an additional child of Johannes & Catharina is recorded in the parish register of St. Anna's: Mathias, baptized 20 September 1762, died 6 October 1762.
Johannes Rack, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and children (Katharina, age 16; Elisabeth, age 8; Mattias, age 2) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 31 May 1766 aboard the pink Slon under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
Johannes Rack, a farmer, his wife Katharina Müller, and daughter Katharina (age 17) settled in the Volga German colony of Leichtling on 14 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 19.
Peter Rack, his brother Christoph, and their families from Leichtling are recorded on the 1857 census of Marienfeld.
The 1767 census records that Johannes Rack came from the German village of Gelnhausen near Hanau.
- 1857 Marienfeld Census.
- Horst, Irma. "Kommissarius Johann Facius und seine Kolonisten", Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland 2020 (Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland e. V., Stuttgart, 2020), 259-265.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Andreas Idt, Georg Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- 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): Lg20.
- Parish register of St. Anna Catholic Church in Somborn (including the villages of Altenmittlau, Bernbach, Horbach, and Neuses).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 55.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #558.
- Stumpp, Karl. The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the years 1763 to 1862 (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1982), 151.
Brent Mai
Maggie Hein