Heinrich Römer was born on 31 October 1713 in Ettingshausen, just east of Giessen. He was baptized there on 3 November 1713 and married there on 3 June 1738 to Anna Christina Weil. They had the following children, all of whom were born in Ettingshausen: (1) Johannes, born May 1739 & died 2 September 1744 of diptheria; (2) Michael, born 31 July 1742; (3) Andreas, b 8 September 1745; (4) Johann Jacob, born 16 November 1748; (5) Anna Elisabetha, born 28 February 1751; and (6) Johann Conrad, born 22 October 1752. Heinrich died in Ettingshausen, apparently on 28 March 1754 [although the Ettingshausen Familienbuch records his death in 1714].
Widow Anna Christina Römer and her children (Andreas, age 21; Johann Jakob, age 18; Johann Konrad, age 14) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a pink named Новая Двинка (New Dvinka [a river in Russia]) under the command of Lieutenant Ivan Perepechin.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Krasnoyar on 20 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 96.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Anna Christina Römer came from the German region of Hohensolms. The 1767 census records that she came from the German village of Lich in the Solms region.
- Brückmann, Hans-Karl. Ettingshausen Familienbuch.
- 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): 492.
- 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): Ks051, Ks060, Ks061.
- Parish records of Ettingshausen.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 441.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3862.
Bill Pickelhaupt
Inge Steul
Brent Mai