Johann Schwerdt, a farmer, his mother Maria, and siblings (Johann [Peter], age 18; Elisabeth, age 12) arrived from Reval [Estonia] at the port of Oranienbaum on 31 May 1766 aboard the pink Slon under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Kamenka on 1 March 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Households No. 64 and 65, respectively.
Johannes Schwerdt, his wife Anna Margaretha, and children (Susanna, age 5; Johannes, age 2) are recorded on the 1775 census of Kamenka in Household No. 3.
Peter Schwerdt, his wife Magdalena, and children (Maria Elisabeth, age 4; Joseph, age ¼) are recorded on the 1775 census of Kamenka in Household No. 101.
In 1794, Johannes Schwerdt left Kamenka. [He may have gone to Semenovka since there is an Anna Maria Schwerdt from Semenovka recorded on the 1798 census of Franzosen in Household No. Fz11.]
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that the Schwerdts came from the German Wetterau region. The 1767 census records that they came from the German town of Frankfurt am Main.
- 1775 Kamenka Census (Households No. 3, 101).
- 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): Fz11, Km033, Km048, Km059, Km090, Km099, Mv1113.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 231, 232.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #534.
Brent Mai