Charle François Houbre was born 21 May 1714 in Dommartin, Picardie in France. He married Klara Krefeld who was from Kirchan bei Hanau (Hessen). Their son Kornelius was born in 1761 in Niederburg, near Mainz.
Karl Uber, his wife Klara, and children (Katharina, age 20; Kornelius, age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 28 August 1766 aboard the ship Der Junge Heinrich under the command of Skipper Heinrich Niemann.
Charle Houbre, a dyer (Färber), his wife Klara Krefeld, and son Kornelius (age 7) are recorded on the 1767 census of Katharinenstadt in Household No. 83. They had arrived in Katharinenstadt on 23 July 1767.
Charle Houbre (age 62), his wife Klara Krefeld (age 52), and son Kornelius (age 15) are recorded on the 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] in Household No. 101.
Kornelius Houbre and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Katharinenstadt in Household No. Ka146.
Both the 1767 census and the 1776 Katharinenstadt Land Register record that Charle Houbre came from the French village of Dommartin in the Picardie region and that Klara Krefeld came from the German village of Kirchhalt near Hanau. The 1776 Katharinenstadt Land Register records that son Kornelius was born in the village of Niederburg in the Mainz region.
This surname over time is recorded in records in Russia as Houbre, Ubre, and Oubre before settling to a consistent spelling of Ubert.
- 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] (Household No. 101).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 35.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 886.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Ka146.
- McGinnis, Sean. The Founding Families of Catharine, Kansas (2007).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 294.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #7224.
Sean McGinnis
Brent Mai