Michael Rittelmeier, a farmer, and his wife Anna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard a ship named Der Ringende Jacob (The Wrestling Jacob) under the command of Skipper Johann Heitmann.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Brabander on 11 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 35.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Rittelmeier came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that Michael Rittelmeier came from the German village of Ober[ha]unstadt in the Bayern region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Rittelmeier family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 530.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 222.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4141 (p. 269).
Brent Mai