VGI Updates

Melchior Ott, a farmer, and his wife Anna Margaretha arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 September 1766 aboard the Russian galliot Strelna under the command of Lieutenant Sornev.

They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767 and are recorded there along with their new-born son on the 1767 census in Household No. 128.

Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Melchior Ott came from the German district of Hessen.

The Norka website reports that Melchior Ott came from the German village of Radmühl.

There are three Dörr families who settled in Norka.  All three families came from the German village of Udenhain. The births, marriages, and deaths of the Dörr family occurred in Udenhain and neighboring villages and are recorded in the parish register of nearby Hellstein.

Johann Heinrich Nagelschmidt was born 6 August 1702 in Udenhain, the son of Johann Martin Nagelschmidt and his wife Magdalena Schleicher. Johann Heinrich Nagelschmidt married Elisabetha Margretha Kron in Unterreichenbach on 8 February 1730.

They along with their daughter Anna Margaretha, her husband Nikolaus Vogler, and their children immigrated to Russia, arriving from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the snow-brig named Christina under the command of Skipper Jacob Stappenberg.

There are three Wilhelms that settled in Norka.

(1) Johannes Wilhelm, son of Johann Jacob & Anna Dorothea Wilhelm, was born 22 March 1722 in Schlierbach.  He married there to Anna Magdalena Lohrey on 7 April 1752.  They had two children: (1) Anna Gertraud, born 28 January 1753; and (2) Albertina, born 16 February 1755, died 30 November 1756.  Anna Magdalena died on 19 November 1756.  Johannes remarried on 26 January 1758 to Anna Margaretha Seibert.