Valentin Völker, a farmer, his wife Dorothea, and children (Gertruda, age 21; Johann Martin, age 18; Christina, age 15; Philippina, age 12) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 28 July 1766 aboard a Russian pink named Vologda [an historic Russian city] under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Bartenyev.
Daughter Gertrude [Völker] (age 21) is recorded with her [new] husband Nikolaus Burkhardt on the 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 106) along with her brother Christian [recorded as Philippina above?] Völker (age 11). They had arrived in Walter on 10 September 1767. [See Burkhardt Family.]
In 1793, Christoph [sic] Völker was exiled from Walter.
The 1767 census does not record from where Christian [sic] Völker came.
It is believed that another sibling is recorded in Norka.
Orphan Christina Völker (age 18), daughter of Nikolaus Völker, is recorded on the 1767 census of Norka in Household No. 204 along with the Konrad Dick family. [The father's name Nikolaus may be an error in reference to her sister's husband rather than her father.] The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Völker and Dick families.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Völker family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 607.
- 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): Nr119.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 285.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 319.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4857.
Brent Mai