Maria Catharina Stallbaum, daughter of the deceased Gottfried Stallbaum, married on 22 April 1745 in Seegrehna to Johann Christian Schmidt from Gohrau, eldest son of Christian Schmidt. Maria Catharina had been born in 1722 in Seegrehna. They had a number of additional children including Dorothea Elisabeth who was born 7 July 1745 and baptized in nearby Rehsen.
The Schmidt family immigrated to Russia along with the family of Christian Stallbaum, presumed to be a relative of Maria Catharina. Christian, his wife, and their three children arrived on 4 July 1766 at the port in Oranienbaum having sailed from Lübeck aboard the English frigate Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
Christi. Stallbaum, his wife Anna Maria, and children (August Willhelm, age 12; Maria Mariana, age 9; Joh. Christian, age 3; Christian, born en route) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that both parents and sons Joh. Christian and Christian died en route.
His surviving children settled in the Volga German colony of Boisroux on 7 June 1767. Son August Wilhelm is recorded on the 1767 census of Boisroux in Household No. 42 with the Gedde family. Daughter Maria Christina Stallbaum is recorded living in Household No. 28 with Dorothea Elisabeth, the eldest daughter of the aforementioned Schmidt family.
August Stahlbaum and his family are recorded on the 1834 census of Boisroux in Households No. 15 & 60.
- 1834 Boisroux Census (Households No. 15, 60).
- 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): Bx07.
- Parish records of Seegrehna.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 146, 149.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1409.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0779-0784.
- Schmidt, David F. "Using Russian and German Records to Research Your Family Back to Germany." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 40:1 (Spring 2017): 29-34.
David F. Schmidt
Brent Mai