There are two Wenz families that arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard a ship named Die Perle under the command of Skipper Gerhardt Hermann Thomsen. Their relationship to each other, if any, needs further research.
(1) Philipp Jakob Wenz, a single farmer, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard a ship named Die Perle under the command of Skipper Gerhardt Hermann Thomsen.
Philipp Jakob Wenz, a farmer, is recorded on the 1767 census of Kolb in Household No. 28 along with a note that he moved to the colony of Walter in 1768.
(2) Heinrich Wenz, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children (Johann [Nikolaus], age 17¼; Elisabeth, age 14; Maria, age 8; Wilhelm, age 4; Susanna, age 2) arrived in Oranienbaum.
Nikolaus Wenz (age 17) is recorded on the 1767 census of Kolb in Household No. 29.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that both of these Wenz households came from the German village of Kronberg in the region of Zweibrücken.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Wenz family among the Volga German colonies.
- 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): 158, 160.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 392.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #997.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0149, #0409.
Brent Mai