Weitzel (Frank)
The marriage of Johann Georg Weitzel and Anna Elisabeth Mühl is recorded in Büdingen on 14 March 1766 along with the marriage of Johann Wilhelm Opfer & Eleonore Weitzel, also on 14 March 1766. Weitzel was recorded as being from "Stengerat" and Opfer from "Belterstein". There is not a place called "Stengerat" or a place called "Belterstein," but there is a Stangenrod with a Beltershain just west of it.
There is a Familienbuch for Stangenrod. Reported on page 145 of that book are Johann Georg Weitzel, son of Johann Heinrich Weitzel (born 16 October 1703) & Anna Barbara Becker (born 2 November 1710), born 26 February 1742, and his sister Eleonore Philippina Weitzel, born 3 September 1744. Since neither of them is noted as dying in Stangenrod, I think it is reasonable to assume that they are the two who went to Russia and settled in the colony of Frank.
Johann Georg Weitzel, a farmer, and his wife Elisabeth are recorded on the 1767 census of Frank in Household No. 11.
- Hofmann, Jan Christof. Familienbuch Stangenrod: 145.
- 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): Fk034.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #429, #430.
- Parish register of Büdingen.
- Parish register of Stangenrod (LDS Film #1195960).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 421.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai