Johann Georg Waag, son of Johann Georg Waag & Gertraud Kiefer, was born 31 December 1727 and baptized 4 January 1728 in the Evangelical Church of Sprendlingen. He married on 29 March 1749 in the same church to Maria Elisabetha Gerhardt, daughter of Johann Nicolaus Gerhardt & Anna Margaretha Helfmann. Maria Elisabetha Gerhardt had been born in neighboring Langen on 17 January 1728.
The baptisms of the following children born to Johann Georg Waag & Maria Elisabetha Gerhardt are recorded in the parish register of Sprendlingen: (1) Johann Jost, born 15 February 1749 [before the parents were married]; (2) Marie Elisabetha, born 20 Dec 1750, died 25 Mar 1754; and (3) Johann Ludwig, born 30 June 1753.
Maria Elisabeth Waag née Gerhardt died on 24 November 1758 in Sprendlingen. Johann Georg remarried on 16 November 1763 in Sprendlingen to Susanna Schmidt, daughter of Philipp Schmidt & Gertraud Löffler. Susanna had been born 27 December 1741 and baptized on 28 December 1741 in the same church.
The baptism of two children born to Johann Georg Waag & Susanna Schmidt are recorded in the parish register of Sprendlingen: (1) Susanna, born 27 April 1762; and (2) Samuel, born 22 August 1765.
Georg Waag, a farmer, his wife Susanna, and children (Ludwig, age 14; Susanna, age 5¼; Samuel, age 1¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 29 July 1766 aboard a ship named Apollo under the command of Skipper Friedrich Detloff Mörenberg.
Georg Waag, a farmer, his wife Susanna, and children (Ludwig, age 15; Susanna, age 6; Samuel, age 2) are recorded on the 1767 census of Grimm in Household No. 81. They had arrived in Grimm on 1 July 1767.
The Georg Waag family is recorded on the 1775 census of Grimm in Household No. 3.
According to the 1798 Census, their descendants are still living in Grimm, recorded there in Households No. Gm033, Gm043, Gm046, and Gm165. Daughter Anna Catharina had moved to the colony of Müller in 1790, she is recorded there in Household No. Ml09.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Georg Waag came from the German region of Isenburg.
- 1775 Grimm Census (Household No. 3).
- 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): 626.
- Knöß, Heinrich & Ute Sehring. Familienbuch Sprendlingen [Schriften der Hessischen familiengeschichtlichen Vereinigung e.V. Nr. 53] (Dreieich: 2013): #1008, #5040, #6125, #6133, #6135.
- 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): Gm033, Gm043, Gm046, Gm165.
- Parish register of Sprendlingen (LDS Film No. 1193263).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 84.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5024.
Corina Hirt
Brent Mai