Jakob Schmelzinger and his wife Margaretha arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 26 August 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Die Jäger (The Hunter) under the command of Skipper Gabriel Will.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Brabander on 28 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 16.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Jaob Schmelzinger was a farmer from the German region of Solms. The 1767 census records that he was a weaver (Leinweber) from the German village of Hemsbach in the Kurpfalz region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 34.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 855.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 218.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: State Technical University, 2010): #6784.
Brent Mai