Christian Scheffler, a farmer, his wife Dorothea, and [step-]children [surname Specht] (Michael, age 17½; Maria, age 15¼; Christian, age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English barque named George under the command of Skipper Adam Bairnsfair.
Christian Scheffler, his wife Mari. Dorothea, and [step-]children [surname Specht] (Joh. Michael, age 17½; Maria Elisabet, age 15½; Christian, age 7) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Christoph [sic] Scheffler, a farmer, and his wife Maria are recorded on the 1767 census of Kaneau in Household No. 24 along with his stepchildren [surname Specht] (Johann Michael, age 21; Maria Elisabeth, age 16; Christian, age 8). They arrived in Kaneau on 7 June 1767. [See Specht Family.]
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Christoph Scheffler came from the German region of Dessau.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Scheffler family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 189.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 248.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1261.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0537-0541.
Brent Mai