Kaspar Schmidt, a linen weaver (Lineweber), his wife Anna, and daughters (Anna, age 8; Helena, age 4; Margaretha, age 3) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 7 May 1766 aboard the galliot named Anna Katharina under the command of Skipper Daniel Heyer.
Kaspar Schmidt, a farmer, his wife Anna, and daughters (Anna Maria, age 9; Elisabeth, age 6; Anna Elisabeth, age 6-months) are recorded on the 1767 census of Kaneau in Household No. 65. They had settled there on 10 May 1767.
Gottlieb Schmidt from Kaneau and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Ernestinendorf in Household No. Er15.
The 1850 census of Rosental records in Household No. 23 that Heinrich Schmidt and his family arrived in Rosental from Kaneau in 1847.
Heinrich Schmidt and his family are recorded on an 1865 list of colonists resettled to Lilienfeld along with a note that they had arrived in Lilienfeld from Kaneau on 7 March 1859.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Kaspar Schmidt came from the Gemran region of Waldburg. The 1767 census records that Kaspar Schmidt came from the German village of Vetzberg. [The German origins of the Caspar Schmidt family that settled in the Volga German colony of Kaneau have been located in Vetzberg near Rodheim an der Horloff. This research was done by Manfred Schmidt who was also born in Vetzberg and baptized in the same church as the family that moved to Russia.]
- 1850 Rosental Census (Household No. 23).
- 1865 Lilienfeld List.
- 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): 58-59.
- 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): Er15, Kn12, Kn14.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 258.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #117.
Brent Mai
Manfred Schmidt