Elias Specht, a single farmer, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 14 June 1766 aboard the ship named Die Neue Fortuna (The New Fortune) under the command of Skipper Ahrens Steingraber.
Elias Specht is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Orphan Elias Specht (age 17) is recorded on the 1767 census of Seelmann in Household No. 60 along with the Georg Bickel family. They had arrived in Seelmann on 15 July 1767. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Bickel & Specht families. [See Bickel Family.]
The widow and children of Elias Specht are recorded on the 1798 census of Seelmann in Household No. Sm46.
Johannes Specht, son of Elias Specht, is recorded on the 1811 census of Seelmann in Household No. 46 along with a note that he relocated to the colony of Neu-Kolonie in 1805.
Johannes Specht from Seelmann is recorded on the 1811 census in Neu-Kolonie in Household No. 43 along with a note that he had arrived in Neu-Kolonie from Seelmann in 1805.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Elias Specht came from the German region of Bamberg.
- 1811 Neu-Kolonie Census (Household No. 43).
- 1811 Seelmann Census (Household No. 46).
- 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): 271.
- 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): Sm46.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 160.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1964.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1537.
Brent Mai