Johann Nicolaus Schäfer, son of Rupert Schäfer & Anna Margaretha Hubert, was baptized 21 October 1683 in Vielbrunn. He married Anna Margaretha (surname unknown) from Wembach.
The following children were born to Johann Nicolaus & Anna Margaretha Schäfer: (1) Anna Catharina, born abt 1705; (2) Johann Nicolaus, born 9 February 1708 in Rodau; (3) Anna Eva Maria, born 17 August 1712 in Rodau; (4) Margaretha Elisabetha, born 27 February 1715 in Rorbach, died 11 March 1720; (5) Johann Peter, born 25 September 1717 in Rorbach, died 20 May 1720; (6) Johann Conrad, born 13 September 1721 in Rorbach, died 13 June 1734 in Groß-Bieberau; and (7) Anna Barbara, born 16 April 1724 in Wembach.
Two of their children immigrated to Denmark and then to Russia:
(1) Johann Nicolaus Schäfer married 15 August 1730 in Ober-Ramstadt to Johanna Magdalena Gemmer, daughter of Conrad & Anna Elisabetha Gemmer from Zeilhard.
The following children were born to Johann Nicolaus Schäfer & Johanna Magdalena Gemmer: (1) Johann Ludwig, born in 1731 in Groß-Bieberau, died 10 August 1731; (2) Anna Apollonia, born 1 November 1733 in Groß-Bieberau, died 11 April 1734; (3) Johann Leonhard, born 16 January 1735 in Groß-Bieberau, died 12 January 1736; (4) Johann Friedrich, born about 1739; and (5) Catharina Barbara, born about 1743.
Johann Nikolaus Schäfer, a farmer, his wife, and daughter (Katharina Barbara, age 1) moved to Wembach and then immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) arriving in Fridericia on 27 September 1760. They are last recorded in the Danish colonies on 31 December 1764.
Johann Nikolaus Schäfer, a farmer, and his wife Elisabeth arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 May 1766 aboard the Russian galliot named Katharina Eleonora under the command of Skipper Peter Rehder.
Johann Nikolaus Schäfer (age 58), a farmer, and his wife Elisabeth (age 56) are recorded on the 1767 census of Göbel in Household No. 52. They had arrived in Göbel on 20 July 1767.
The Eichhorns record that Johann Nikolaus Schäfer came from "Wembach, Amt. Lichtenberg, Landgrafschaft Hessen-Darmstadt." The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Nikolaus Schäfer came from the German region of Darmstadt. The 1767 census records that he came from the German village of Weinbach [Wembach] in the Darmstadt region.
(2) Anna Eva Maria Schäfer married Johannes Dreher. [See Dreher Family.]
There are no known surviving male lines of this Schäfer family among the Volga German colonies.
- Eichhorn, Alexander, Jacob & Mary Eichhorn. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766 (Deiningen, Germany: Drukerei und Verlag Steinmeier GmbH & Co. Kg, 2012): B-1419.
- Franze-Merlau, Christel. Ortsfamilienbuch Roßdorf [Online].
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 71-72.
- Kirschnick, Ulrich. Ortsfamilienbuch Rodau [Online].
- Kirschnick, Ulrich. Ortsfamilienbuch Wembach [Online].
- Lang, Gerhard. German Colonists of Denmark on the Volga.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 52.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #210.
Gerhard Lang
Brent Mai