Johannes Thomas Seelmann was born 18 January 1696. He married on 24 November 1721 to Anna Katharina Brückner. She had been born 7 May 1690.
Johannes Paul Seelmann, son of Johannes Thomas Seelmann & Anna Katharina Brückner, was born 16 April 1729. He married on 19 January 1750 to Maria Magdalena Reuther, daughter of Johannes Stephan & Gertruda Reuther. [Johannes Stephan Reuther had been born 4 June 1682.]
The parish register of Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Gemünden am Main (Innenstadt) records the baptisms of the following children born to Johannes Paul Seelmann & Maria Magdalena Reuther: (1) Maria Magdalena, baptized 11 October 1750; (2) Franz August, baptized 1 October 1756; and (3) Johannes Michael, baptized 23 June 1765.
Johann Paulus Seelmann, a stone mason, his wife Magdalena, and children (Magdalena, age 20; Franziscus, age 16¼; Michael, age 1¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 11 June 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Der Jäger (The Hunter) under the command of Skipper Gabriel Will.
Paulus Seelmann is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Seelmann on 15 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 1.
The 1767 census also notes that Johann Paulus Seelmann is serving as the colony's mayor (Vorsteher), and it is after him that the colony was named.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Paulus Seelmann came from the German region of Würzburg. The 1767 census records that Johann Paulus Seelmann came from the German village of Gemünden in the Würzburg region.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 292.
- 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): Sm43.
- Parish register of Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Gemünden am Main (Innenstadt).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 149.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2139.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1548.
Brent Mai
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