The baptisms of two children to Rudolph & Anna Maria Ritter [also recorded as Reuter and Reider] are recorded in the parish register of Dermbach, each born in Unteralba: (1) Anna Maria, born 13 February 1754; and (2) Johann Justin, born 24 January 1757.
Anna Maria Ritter, wife of Rudolph Ritter, died 4 November 1761 in Unteralba. Widower Rudolph Ritter of Unteralba remarried on 7 January 1762 to Maria Magdalena Spiegel, daughter of Johann Georg & Anna Catharina Spiegel from Unteralba. She had been born 12 September 1747 in Unteralba.
The baptisms of two children to Rudolph Ritter and Maria Magdalena Spiegel is recorded in the parish register of Dermbach, each born in Unteralba: (1) Johann Georg, born 19 April 1763; and (2) Catharina Elisabeth, born 9 April 1765.
Rudolph Ritter, a farmer, his wife Maria, and children (Anna, age 16¼; Maria, age 13; Johann, age 4; Katharina, age 1½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard a barque named Der Junge Mattias (The Young Mattias) under the command of Skipper Johann Gottfried Selander.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Dehler on 1 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 3.
The Oranienabaum passenger list records that Rudolph Ritter was a farmer while the 1767 census records that he was a tile maker (Fleisenleger).
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Rudolph Ritter came from the German region of Fulda. The 1767 census records that Rudolph Ritter is from the German village of Unteralba in the Fulda area.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Ritter 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): 431.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 268.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3354.
Brent Mai
Max Weinbinder