Hans Adam Wantzerid, son of cobbler David Wantzerid & Anna Maria Gesell, was born 13 July 1700 in Schriesheim. He married 12 February 1725 in Schriesheim to Maria Klara Schneider. She had been born 31 July 1702. They had 5 children whose births are recorded in Schriesheim: (1) Ludwig Philipp, born 25 November 1725; (2) Anna Maria, born 13 October 1727; (3) Catharina, born 3 September 1730, died 13 September 1730; (4) Anna Elisabetha, born 17 October 1731, died 21 October 1731; and (5) Hans Henrich, born 5 January 1733.
Maria Klara Wenzerich née Schneider died in Schriesheim on 19 September 1734. Hans Adam remarried in Schriesheim on 9 November 1735 to Anna Maria Würtz, daughter of Urban Würtz & Anna Barbara Meuer. She had been born on 27 March 1705 in Schriesheim. The births of three of their children are recorded in the parish register of Schriesheim: (1) Hans Adam, born 3 January 1738, died 19 April 1742; (2) Maria Catharina, born in 1740, died 6 November 1742; and (3) Johann[es], born 11 October 1743.
Adam, Anna Maria, and their son Johannes moved to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein), arriving in Fridericia on 1 May 1760. They settled in the colony of Friderichsheede (Amt Silkeborg). They are last recorded among the Danish colonies on 26 April 1763.
They joined the immigration to Russia and arrived in Anton on 7 September 1764. They are recorded in Anton on the 1767 Census in Household No. 17 where the spelling of the surname is recorded as Wenzerich. This spelling continues among records in the colony of Anton. The surname is erroneously recorded as Wensinger on the 1798 census (An31).
The Eichhorns record that Johann Adam Wentzert came from the German village of Schriesheim, Heidelberg region, Kurpfalz. The 1767 census records that he came from the German region of Heidelberg in the Kurpfalz.
Johannes appears to have had only daughters, so this surname does not continue among the German colonies along the Volga.
- 1834 Census of Anton (Household No. 70).
- 1857 Census of Anton (Households No. 97 & 98).
- Eichhorn, Alexander, Jacob & Mary Eichhorn. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766 (Deiningen, Germany: Drukerei und Verlag Steinmeier GmbH & Co. Kg, 2012): B-1798.
- Lang, Gerhard. German Colonists of Denmark on the Volga.
- 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): An16, An17, An31.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 57.
- Schuhmann, Karl. Familienbuch Schriesheim: 1650-1900 (Schriesheim, Germany: Odenwaldklub Schriesheim, 2004): #10433, #10434, #10435, #11055.
Gerhard Lang
Brent Mai