Sebastian Meier, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, sons (Johannes, age 3; Johann Georg, age 1¾), and stepson Johann Just [Wentz] (age 12) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 7 May 1766 aboard the galliot named Anna Katharina under the command of Skipper Daniel Heyer.
Sebastian Meyer [sic], his wife Eisabeth, sons (Johannes, age 4; George, age ½), and stepson Johann Jost [Wentz] (age 12) are recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Oranienbaum in 1767.
Johann Jost Wensen [sic] (age 12) is recorded on an appendix to the 1767 census of Katharinenstadt in Household No. 7 along with his stepfather Sebastian Meier.
It is presumed that Johann Jost Wentz settled originally in Wittmann since that is where his mother and stepfather settled.
Johannes Wentz and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Brabander in Household No. Bn26.
The death of Johannes Wentz in 1833 is recorded on the 1834 census of Brabander in Household No. 50.
The 1767 census does not record from where this family came.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 61.
- 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): Bn26.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 325.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #137.
Brent Mai