Schmidt (Straub-1)

Melchior Schmidt, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and their children (Johann, age 20; Eva, age 17½; Anna, age 14; Katharina, age 11; Anna, age 9) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 25 July 1766 aboard the snow-brig named Maria Sophia under the command of Skipper Johann Bauert.

Melchior Schmidt, his wife Elisabeth, and children (Johann Willhelm, age 20; Anna Eva, age 17; Elisabeth, age 14, Catharina, age 11) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.

Wife Elisabeth died, and Melchior remarried to Helena Bollinger, the widow of Johann Bollinger. The combined Schmidt/Bollinger family settled in the Volga German colony of Lauwe on 5 September 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 48 along with a note that they relocated to the colony of Straub in 1768.

The 1798 census of Warenburg records in Household No. Wr002 a widow Elisabeth Klara Schmidt (age 69) from Straub. It is possible that she was a subsequent wife of Melchior Schmidt.

The 1767 census records that Melchior Schmidt came from the German village of Sasa [?] in the Darmstadt region.