Paul Schmidt, a farmer, and his wife Katharina arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a galliot named Frau Catharina under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Jenßen.
Paul Schmidt and his wife Catharina are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Ernestinendorf on 3 August 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 26 along with a note that they relocated to the colony of Biberstein in 1768.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Paul Schmidt came from the German region of Darmstadt. The 1767 census records that Paul Schmidt came from the German village of Schwarzenbach in the Darmstadt region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Schmidt 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): 505.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 402.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3966.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5211-5212.
Brent Mai