Johann Nicolaus Wenzel from Lissberg married in Gelnhaar on 18 November 1760 to Susanna Müller, daughter of Johann Heinrich Müller.
The baptisms of two of their children are recorded in the Gelnhaar parish register: (1) Johann Georg, born 28 September 1761, baptized 30 September 1761; and (2) Anna Elisbetha, born 26 June 1765, baptized 28 June 1765.
Susanna also had an earlier illegitimate child, Wÿgand, who was born on 28 December 1757, and baptized on 4 January 1758 - also in Gelnhaar. The baptismal entry records that the father is Johann Heinrich Beck, son of Johann Ehrhard Beck. Even though the record also notes that Johann Heinrich Beck denied this paternity, Wÿgand and his descendants used the surname of Beck in later records.
Johann Nicolaus Wenzel, Susanna, and Wÿgand [Beck] arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Frau Diederika (Lady Diederika) under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Lunau.
They arrived in the Volga German colony of Walter on 10 September 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 91.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Nikolaus Wenzel came from the German region of Hanau. The 1767 census records that Johann Nicolaus Wenzel came from the German village of Lißberg in the region of Hessen-Darmstadt. Lißberg is located a few kilometers northwest of Gelnhaar.
- 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): 759.
- 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): Wt046.
- Parish register of Gelnhaar.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 315.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6076.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai