2013 VC Report

http://www.remmick.org/Borodino.Bess.History/PageAbrevPlacles.html

Balzer Village Coordinator Report 2013

2013 was a slower year for Balzer research. This was partially due to a detached bicep muscle that causes difficulty typing and the lack of new information coming out of Russia. No newsletters were issued this year.

Although there appears to be significant Balzer church records at the various archives in Russia, the cost of obtaining copies is too prohibitive. The Balzer group does not have a research fund. The records include a copy of the 1897 Balzer census, which has been proven to exist.

Perhaps because of the disappointments our ancestors experienced in Denmark, or “the grass is greener” syndrome, Catherine’s Edict offered greater opportunities to some of these Danish colonists who accepted her invitation.

A few new ancestral German villages were uncovered. To date, we have at least partial information on nearly seventy percent of the Balzer original founding families. Research has demonstrated that some of our “German” ancestors were in fact Huguenot refugees from France and Switzerland, and Walloon citizens from Belgium.

Work on issuing a new volume of German Origins is still in the making.

My thanks to Herb Femling for helping on this mega task. We always welcome new recruits to this effort and stress the importance of sharing information with Dick Kraus and his German Origins project and Brent Mai on his Volga Origins website.

Inquiries were received from researchers in the United States, Germany, and Russia, and I was able to fulfill many of their requests. The lack of information post 1857 still poses a research problem for most researchers.

With my forthcoming retirement from work and no planned surgeries, I am looking forward to amazing progress in 2014 with new German origins, a new German origin volume, and hopefully renewal of the newsletter.

Wayne H. Bonner

Balzer VC

Part report of Balzer of the Volga German Colonies.

I, Darrell Weber, maintain the computer records. During the year several people contacted me for help on the Balzer records. In most cases I was able to provide information to them. I have been following my own lines into germany using the information that Wayne Bonner collect from the photographed records that are on microfilm in the LDS family history library. Darrell Weber

Bangert 2013 Annual Report

I had 4 inquires this past year. Slow year but continue to update the data base as information becomes available.

Sure could use any census during the years of 1858 to 1900.

Paul Koehler, Village Coordinator for Bangert, the village of my Grandparents birth place.

Blumenfeld 2013 Annual Report

I have not had any inquiries about Blumenfeld, Russia. I have been looking for information that I could use to make a new web page which I am still working on but it is not completed yet.

Deb Dumler

VC of Blumenfeld Russia.

Borodino 2013 Annual Report

As always, Borodino is always gaining new information. I worked a great deal on the “original villages” of the early colonists found at:

The German states are listed as are many of the districts with location and a little history if I found any. Plenty of maps. Lots of photos.

The additional data on various families continue to grow and can be found at: http://www.remmick.org/Borodino.Bess.Genealogy/index.html

Take a look at last year’s report. The contact information is the same.

History:

http://www.remmick.org/Borodino.Bess.History/PageMigrRoutes.html

Genealogy: http://www.remmick.org/Borodino.Bess.Genealogy/index.html

I have continued to add to my newest section that deals with the places of origin of our Borodino ancestors who migrated from Germany.

As always, there has been a great deal of interest in Borodino. New additions to the family members have been included, also.

I received some family sheets of various families from AHSGR office.

Judy A. Remmick-Hubert

Borodino / Bess, VC

Brabander Village Coordinator Report for 2013

It has been another busy and rewarding year for Brabander Colony Research. We now have the 1834, 1850, and 1857 Census available. A substantial amount of the Church Records for Brabander are also available in Russian, but still not translated. The 1850 and 1857 Brabander Census are available in English, German, Spanish, and original Russian.

The Abt Family Chart prepared by Dr. Igor Pleve PhD from Saratov remains the only available family Chart for Brabander. The Bondank, Führ, and Schwalje family Charts commissioned with Dr. Pleve in January 2006 still have not been delivered.

The 1857 Brabander Colony Surname Index:

Brabander 1857 Census – Brabander 1857 Zählung – Brabander 1857 Censo translated and available

There were 178 households recorded in the 1857 Brabander Census.

Waren 178 Haushalt ins Brabander 1857.

Fue 178 casas en Brabander 1857.

Perhaps the most dramatic event for 2013 was receipt of an hour long video filmed in Brabander by Viktor Martel and his family. Viktor and his sister Pauline and other family members visited Brabander filming the entire village, the cemetery and surrounding area. Viktor even discussed the ownership of various buildings still standing in the village including one owned by his grandfather Alexander Braun a cousin of my great great grandmother Margaretha Braun. Viktor’s video was perfect for all family members that are fluent in both the village dialect and Russian, but for those of us who do not speak Russian we will have to get translations. We are very happy to have such a treasure to work on. Thank you Viktor Martel and sister Pauline and family for sharing your trip video. Also a special thank you is in order for Dr. Sergei Molleker PhD who has Molleker, Schwalje and Brester roots from Brabander plus Masson, Kroneberger, Büchner and Östertag roots from Dehler.

In April 2010, Analia DiProspero y Haag from Buenos Aires, Argentina and Andy Kroneberger from Spicer, Minnesota volunteered to help as Village Coordinators for both Brabander and Dehler. Analia and Andy share numerous family lines from Brabander and Dehler with me. Analia is an aggressive genealogist with ancestry from Brabander, Dehler, Preuss, and Holzel. Andy Kroneberger is a member of the AHSGR for more than 30 years. He has published two books with Brabander and Dehler connections: I FOUND MY FAMILY, which is a Kroneberger, Stoessel, Bohn and Meringer genealogy plus A MAN CALLED ANDREAS, which is the story of his parents Andreas Kroneberger and Margaretha Stoessel.

In April I accepted responsibility as a Village Coordinator also for Hölzel, Preuss, Seelmann and a Dehler Daughter Colony called Maienheim 50 kilometer east of Dehler on the Steppe. This Colony was mentioned in a report by Dr. Mattias Haagen PhD who was a guest speaker at an AHSGR Convention. I didn’t really need 4 more villages to serve as a Village Coordinator, but since I have either direct ancestors or relatives in each of the 4 villages that have never had a Village Coordinator I saw a need to step forward and attempt to assemble a team of researchers to coordinate and encourage research. I became a Village Coordinator for Brabander and Dehler in 2006 because there was no Village Coordinator. Since then I have learned that Brabander and Dehler not only had strong family ties to Rothammel and Seewald, but that there were significant family ties between Hölzel, Preuss and Seelmann also. Since much of the Brabander, Dehler Preuss, Hölzel, and Seelmann, migration went to Argentina instead of North America it seemed prudent to recruit some help in Argentina. As a result I pursued help from my cousin Analia DiProspero y Haag in Buenos Aires plus Cristian Jungblut and his wife Eliana Prost from Bahia Blanca, Argentina who are helping as Village Coordinators for Holzel and Preuss. Both also have ancestry from Dehler Colony. They have published a book in Spanish on the Argentina Colony of San Miguel el Archangel. Both also speak fluent German. Cristian has a German Language Radio program.

I am anxiously awaiting the completion of a 900 page plus Eberhardt family genealogy compiled by 3 cousins: Professor Alexander Eberhardt; Lydia Eberhardt; and Michael Bergen. Their ancestors left Brabander and migrated to Ludwigstal in the Ukraine where their great grandfather Alexander Eberhardt born 1855 was the mill owner. This Alexander Eberhardt married Katharina Materi born in Josephstal, Ukraine and they had 13 children. As the Second World War wound down many of the Eberhardt family that were in the Ukraine fearing reprisals against German speaking people migrated into Germany. Those that did not migrate were soon sent to forced labor camps in Kazakhstan or Siberia.

I am still hoping to get a website and Facebook site up for Brabander, Dehler, Hölzel, Preuss, Seelmann, and Maienheim. Unfortunately personal health issues have interfered with productivity again in 2010.

If you have Volga German Ancestry with any of the surnames included in this report I would like for you to communicate with me. I am actively working on all of the genealogies of all of the Brabander families and I have the census information from 1767, 1798, 1834, 1850, and 1857 plus some translated church records plus more that have not been translated.

http://cvgs.cu-portland.edu/settlements/mother_colonies/colony_dietel.cfm

Jim Osborne Village Coordinator

Brunnental, 2013 Village Report Samara, Volga, Russia

This year was a busy year again for the village of Brunnental/Brunnenthal. I continue to find new families through my ongoing research using “Ancestry.com”. I’ve renewed my subscription for another year, as I’m still busy updating one family at a time with census information, military records, death records, passenger listings, naturalization records and passport records. I have recently uploaded the entire Brunnental Database to Ancestry.com, although it is a private tree. I’ve gotten lots of inquiries and at some point I may go public with it. This year has been an incredibly busy year for me. Sometimes I think I generate MORE PAPER than I get put away into the family folders. I love researching the various families, and love finding new information.

This year I decided to get an additional subscription to “genealogybank.com”, which is a collection of old newspapers. It has been a wonderful source for obituaries and other newspaper articles.

I’ve also joined a site called FOLD3.com which has military records, and has also been helpful for researching those that have served in the military.

I’ve put together a comprehensive list of all passenger lists of those from Brunnental which can be found on our village website.

We have also put together a listing of all those Brunnentalers found within the WWI DRAFT REGISTRATION RECORDS which can be found online at Ancestry.com. This listing of WWI Draft Registrations can also be found on our website.

We also have an ongoing “listserv” through Rootsweb, where those who are interested in sharing information about Brunnental can “join”, and then receive emails from anyone else who has also joined the list. This is where I post such things as obituaries, passenger lists as I find them, or other interesting information about our village. It’s a great way to keep in touch with everyone, and only send ONE EMAIL to reach everyone. You can join our listserv from the Brunnental webpage (see address below).

Two years ago we started a FACEBOOK group for Brunnental, and it can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/brunnental/?bookmark_t=group

We have been in contact through FACEBOOK with many new Brunnental descendants. I have posted photos of Brunnental there in hopes of attracting new followers. We currently have 142 members. It’s a great way to stay in touch with everyone and let them know what’s new.

I want to again thank Albert Santorius who was instrumental in getting more records concerning Brunnental. Albert has also been so helpful in posting various Brunnental photos of the school and church to the Russian Website http://wolgadeutsche.net/ , so as to attract more queries.

I, of course, could not do any of this research without the help of all of the descendants from the village of Brunnental. You are such an enthusiastic group of people, and you keep me motivated to continue to gather the history and genealogy of our village. Thanks!!!

Sherrie (Gettman) Stahl

EMAIL ADDRESS sherriestahl@gmail.com

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/brunnental/?bookmark_t=group

Website: http://www.brunnental.us/brunnental/index.html

AHSGR Village Coordinator for Brunnental, Samara, Volga, Russia

Chortza 2013 Village Coordinators Report (Mennonite Colony):

Most of my inquiries involve the Molotchna Colonies (60 villages), but I occasionally have inquiries for the Chortitza Colonies (20 villages).

I have worked with a total of 14 people during this past year, trying to help them in their search for information about their villages and their families. I met several of these people at the AHSGR Convention in Ft. Collins, CO.

Five of these inquiries gave me the names of the families the researchers are researching. One person was looking for information about an Estate outside of the villages, from where her family (the Janzen family) had come – the Huffnungsfeld Estate.

One inquirer is looking for information about the village of Schardau in the Molotchna for the years 1920-22 where her grandfather was murdered, observed by her father. The family (Jantz/Schmidt) left the Ukraine by train, and crossed into freedom on 19 September 1925 at Riga, Latvia. They immigrated to Canada.

These journals include 600 pages, and is of great interest to area Mennonite Archives – the Mennonite Library and Archives (MLA) of Bethel College, N.

Newton, KS and the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies (CMBS) of Tabor College, Hillsboro, KS. A copy of this set of journals will also be shared with the AHSGR library and archives. This family also has a copy of the diary/journal of Leonhard Suderman during the months of the delegation’s travels throughout mid-west United States before immigration; a translated copy of this diary/journal has been located in MLA at Bethel College. The Leonard Suderman’s and their foster daughter’s family settled in the Whitewater, Kansas area (Harvey and Butler Counties, Kansas).

One of AHSGR’s members who was born in Russia in the Ignatyevo Colony (Ukraine), Bachmut District of Ekaterinoslav Province (south of Konstantinovka), was Frieda Unger Nickel, age 93, who died in September of 2013. She was a member of my chapter, the Golden Wheat Chapter, Wichita, Kansas, and was a long-time translator for AHSGR. Her family has donated most of her family and Russian documents to AHSGR, including many of the letters written in German between her family in Canada and the United States.

Other family names being researched by contacts this past year include Regier, Jantz, Duerksen, Unruh, Bergen, Loewen, Neufeld, Penner, Epp, and Dueck(Dyck).

Specific villages involved in the research contacts include Gnadenheim, Liebenau, Schardau in the Molotchna,

In addition to my comprehensive library for Mennonite research, I have the

1835 Census of the Molotchna Colony (also available at AHSGR library), the school censuses of many of the villages/colonies in the Molotschna, and access to many of the Mennonite family genealogies.

Karen Suderman Penner, VC for the Molochna, Taurida, Ukraine Colonies and the Chortitza, Ekaterinslav, Ukraine Colonies

Dehler Village Coordinator Report for 2013

It has been an amazing year for Dehler Colony research. The 1857 Dehler Census was translated from Russian to German, English, and Spanish and is available. The 1850 Dehler Census has also been translated from Russian and is available in Spanish, German and English. Masson family Church Records for Dehler Colony from the Brabander Colony Church have also been obtained and are available in Russian, German, English and Spanish. A 65 page “Stammeliste” genealogy list of Masson descendants including addresses, photos, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers has been received from relatives in Russia and Germany. We are currently arranging to obtain more church records.

During the last year I was finally able to obtain copies of some of the film about the trip of Adan and Andreas Stoessel the famous automotive explorers from Arroyo Corto, Buenos Aires, Argentina that hopped into their 1928 Chevrolet Convertible along with two mechanics and headed north to New York in 1927 long before most of the roads were built. I am still hoping to obtain a copy of their journal and the book published in 1930. I have published a report entitled THE FABULOUS HERMANOS STOESSEL for the Northern Illinois Chapter AHSGR Newsletter about them along with a segment of their genealogy. Their grandfather was Michael (Miguel) Stoessel born 1815 in Dehler Colony Russia who migrated to Argentina in the 1870s along with 3 of his sons and their families. Miguel Stoessel was the “Vorsteher” of Colonia San Miguel named after him and commonly called Dehler by the inhabitants. The route that Adan and his brother Andreas took through Central America and Mexico became much of the Pan American Highway.

At about the same time that the Stoessel Brothers were driving north to New York from 200 miles south of Buenos Aires, their cousin Margaretha Stoessel the widow of Thomas Bohn was being smuggled out of Russia with the help of Isdor Trausch the older brother of Professor Mattias Trausch. Isdor and Mattias were sons of Mattias Trausch 1873-1934 and Katharina Kroneberger 1877-1942 and first cousins of Andy Kroneberger. and also Kroneberger cousins of my grandmother and Kern cousins of my grandfather. In 1927-1928 few Volga Germans got out of Russia. The courageous story behind the smuggling of Margaretha Stoessel and her two remaining sons Thomas and Eduard Bohn out of Dehler and getting them to the United States is the subject of A MAN CALLED ANDREAS, by Andrew Kroneberger a Dehler Colony Village Coordinator and 30 plus year member of the AHSGR. Margaretha Stoessel was Andy’s mother. Initially Isdor Trausch had planned to send Margaretha and her two sons through Veracruz, Mexico and then move them by land to the United States using parish priests to move them. At the last moment it was decided that the trip through Mexico was not safe for them. Andreas drove to New Orleans and then took a ship to Havana, Cuba to intercept them. In Havana he and Margaretha got married. This qualified Margaretha for entry to the United States immediately, but her two sons had to remain behind in a Catholic Orphanage for nearly 2 years before they were able to migrate. By the time these two sons of the Volga German Colony of Dehler arrived in the United States they were speaking fluent Spanish. The change of plans that interrupted Margaretha Stoessel and her sons trip to Vera Cruz was probably prudent. Mexico was not safe even for Adan and Andreas Stoessel who were robbed in Northern Mexico and lost one of their cameras. I can only imagine the surprise that could have occurred if Margaretha had been moved north from Veracruz along much of the same corridor that her cousins took in their journey north to New York.

Other mysteries such as the ancestry of Jose (Joseph) Östertag born Dehler 1879 and dying in Santa Maria, La Pampa Argentina in 1931 were cleared up by the translation of the 1857 Dehler Census. His father was known as Ignacio to the family in Argentina and found in the 1857 Dehler Census as Ignatius Östertag born 1851, son of Michael Östertag (1826-1852) and Katharina Hammerschmidt born 1830. His wife was Anna Maria Günther born 1848. Ignatius was born after the 1850 Census and was not included on the Östertag Family Chart produced by Dr. Igor Pleve PhD from Saratov. In recent months I have been in contact with descendants of Ignatius Östertag that remained in Russia and have in recent years migrated from Kazakhstan to Germany.

I was able to obtain superior images from the original handwritten 1857 Census in Russian and Dr. Viktor Chevalier (Schwalje) PhD kindly did the translation from Russian to German. The surnames of some of the spouses that came from other villages created some major problems with the index on the final document, but most have been resolved.

Dehler 1857 Census Index translated and available

Translation of German names written phonetically in Cyrillic script is not an easy task especially when it is written by Volga Germans. Most male surnames that are common to a village can be deciphered even if they were badly recorded in Cyrillic Script by someone familiar with the surnames of the village. The maiden names of the wives were not recorded in most cases in the 1834 and 1850 Dehler Colony Census. Fortunately the 1857 Dehler Census revision included most of the wives surnames. Those transcribing the census also did a phonetic interpretation of the German name in Russian. As a result many of the wives names are still questionable derivations of the actual surnames. Hopefully later research will clarify the surnames. That clarification could occur with translation of the church records for Dehler and Brabander. After the first Dehler church burned, sacraments took place 3 miles away in Brabander for a period of more than 20 years. Brabander Baptismal records do record that families baptizing children were from Dehler.

jimosbornesr@yahoo.com Jim Osborne Village Coordinator

Dietel 2013 Annual Report

I bought all of the available census books for Dietel from Concordia. At the convention in Ft. Collins I met six other Dietel descendants. In this meeting it was discussed to either create a website, a Facebook group, or a newsletter. The website idea was the popular choice. I tried and tried but couldn’t successfully get one created so I opened a Facebook group in August. So far there are five members. Hearing so many success stories from other village Facebook groups that they constantly receive hits from all around the world, the Dietel group is pretty wimpy so far.

There was only one request this year. Kathie Hubert needed help with her ancestors: John Koch-Elizabeth Batt (Bott).

We now have a Facebook page started by Karen Bouton the co-coordinator of Dietel. The Facebook link is: www.facebook.com/groups/480622628694267/

Use the link below to get to our under construction webpage and then click on the link at the top of the page for Dietel and check it out. http://intermountainchapterahsgr.blogspot.com

We are grateful to Annette Reynolds for hosting the site for us.

We also recommend the Center for Volga Studies Dietel website:

We hired Olga Litzenberger to write a history of Dietel which she did and it now appears in her new German Book. We also have permission to publish it in our Journal and it will appear there as soon as the Google translation is checked for accuracy. Olga also provided us with numerous pictures from present day Dietel including a picture of one of the 90 year old residents.

There were a small number of persons who have asked for assistance this year. Most of the requests were at the meeting in Colorado and they were able to review the census information available at the convention. We generally recommend that people purchase the Census material and we also provide the information via e-mail.

Don Soeken [donsoeken@gmail.com]

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Bouton

Co-VC Dietel Village

Dinkel 2013 Village Coordinator Report

I had the usual 4-6 people asking for info on their Dinkel relatives. I was able to help them all. I had a person who was interested in info about the town. I directed him to my website and he seemed to be happy about that. I do have a website, although it is not complete. Anyone interested can check it out. It is Dinkel-Tarlykovka.com

Leroy Nikolaiosen VC

Dobrinka 2013 VC Report

During the past 6 months, additional church records have been found at the Russian Archives in Volgograd, for Dobrinka. The records found consist of the Family List 1877- 1891, which has family information, by family and household, for people living in Dobrinka during 1877 – 1891. The list includes birthdate and place of birth, marriage year, children’s names, place of birth and birthdate, and for women who married men in Dobrinka, the year they moved to Dobrinka. The list also gives death dates for some people who passed away during those years. These records were purchased several months ago, they have been received, and the information is being translated.

Church birth records previously purchased for Dobrinka were for 1852-1867 and 1882-1894. The new family list helps fill in the information not available in the birth records and census records, and will give a very complete database for Dobrinka covering 1780 through 1894.

In the process of extracting the information, I have found that people from Dobrinka lived in Knorov Khutor, in addition to Dobrinka Khutor and Rudik Khutor, and some church birth records for these khutors has been found at the Russian Archives in Volgograd. The records available for Dobrinka Khutor (1892-1902), Knorov Khutor (1897-1902), and Rudik Khutor (1897-1900).

There are about 35 pages of records for each khutor, and they will be purchased at a later date. I have only finished extracting about 25% of the records, so additional khutors will probably be found. There are also birthdates for some people born at Dobrinka daughter colonies.

During 2013, I had 30-40 inquires about people from Dobrinka, and their descendants. The primary means of communication for things related to Dobrinka are through the Dobrinka website: http://www.dobrinka.org/ .

There is also a Dobrinka Facebook page, and the Dobrinka mailing list with instructions at:

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/RUS/RUS-SARATOV-DOBRINKA.html

There is a private mailing list for people who have contributed towards the purchase of the church records. I continue to receive inquiries from people in Germany, Russia and Argentina who find me almost exclusively through the Dobrinka website.

Gary Martens

Dobrinka VC

Donhof 2013 Village Coordinator report

I had several inquiries this year and was able to help fill in information for most of them. I continue to work on adding family names and making connections with the 1798, 1834, and 1857 census records. Using those records and online records I was able to make significant progress on my own families from Donhof which includes several allied lines. I made the most progress with the Miller/Muller, and Baus families.

Goals for 2014 are to continue to add to my database and to look into records that may be available from the Russian archives and to see if it possible to order Donhof records that may be available after the 1857 census. I also hope to add a webpage for Donhof in 2014.

I am also continuing to add to records for the early settlers/families that attended our local German Russian church that my family has moved and are preserving. I will be working on a database for those families in 2014. Sources for those records will be census and church records from the early 1900’s. Many of those settlers came from Frank and Katherinethal, Russia and are family members as well as original church members.

Karen Kaiser

Co-cordinator for Donhof

Dreispitz 2013 Village Report

Over the last year I have had only about a half dozen inquiries which I have assisted with. Normally I have several foreign requests, but this year they were all from within the United States. It’s been a very slow year compared to years past and I wonder if it has anything to do with the economy.

This year was also my first year as the only Village Coordinator for Dreispitz. In January of this year I lost my good friend and Co-Coordinator Rachel Smith. She left me with some pretty big shoes to fill and I will continue to try and live up to her expectations.

Currently efforts are being made to obtain the Dreispitz Metrical Books. In addition I am hopeful that we will be able to obtain other village records from the archives in Russia with the generous bequeath by Timothy Montania.

Unfortunately this year I was unable to attend the annual convention which was held in Fort Collins, Colorado but do plan on attending next year’s event.

I have continued to collect obits throughout the year for the Lower Volga Obit Project and have continued to maintain the STORE website for the AHSGR organization. https://store.ahsgr.org

Mark Wills

Village Coordinator for Dreispitz

Ekaterinoslay 2013 Village Coordinators Report (Mennonite Colony):

Most of my inquiries involve the Molotchna Colonies (60 villages), but I occasionally have inquiries for the Chortitza Colonies (20 villages).

These journals include 600 pages, and is of great interest to area Mennonite Archives – the Mennonite Library and Archives (MLA) of Bethel College, N. Newton, KS and the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies (CMBS) of Tabor College, Hillsboro, KS. A copy of this set of journals will also be shared with the AHSGR library and archives. This family also has a copy of the diary/journal of Leonhard Suderman during the months of the delegation’s travels throughout mid-west United States before immigration; a translated copy of this diary/journal has been located in MLA at Bethel College. The Leonard Suderman’s and their foster daughter’s family settled in the Whitewater, Kansas area (Harvey and Butler Counties, Kansas).

Other family names being researched by contacts this past year include Regier, Jantz, Duerksen, Unruh, Bergen, Loewen, Neufeld, Penner, Epp, and Dueck(Dyck).

Specific villages involved in the research contacts include Gnadenheim, Liebenau, Schardau in the Molotchna,

In addition to my comprehensive library for Mennonite research, I have the

1835 Census of the Molotchna Colony (also available at AHSGR library), the school censuses of many of the villages/colonies in the Molotschna, and access to many of the Mennonite family genealogies.

Karen Suderman Penner,VC for the Molochna, Taurida, Ukraine Colonies and the Chortitza, Ekaterinslav, Ukraine Colonies

Enders 2013 Village Report

I received two requests this year for the village of Enders. One was a Mueller cousin in Germany and I was able to assist him in building his family tree. Our connection stems to brothers listed in the 1857 Enders Census. The second inquiry came from Russia for the Enders family. Fortunately, there are surname charts available for both family names and we were able to identify the ancestral family.

The Enders facebook page continues to attract researches from Russia, Germany and Canada, as well as the U.S. We love ancestral family photos! The Enders website http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~enders/ includes a link to Enders on Facebook.

As I receive inquiries for a surname, I add new family information to the database, along with data from Ship Lists, Obituaries and Census Records.

BETH Mueller-Rohn DAVENPORT

Enders (Ust-Karaman) Village Coordinator http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~enders/

Frank and Frank-Kolb Database annual report 2013 Village of Submitted by Maggie Hein and Doris Evans

We received more than 70 inquiries during the year. The single largest source for new inquiries is Facebook, with the rest coming from our web site, referrals from other village coordinators, and the AHSGR office. Inquiries have come from Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, and the U.S. We also met with and helped people during the AHSGR convention, and Doris met with and helped people during the Odessa Washington Deutschesfest.

An interesting new source of contact has been DNA testing. I had two Kolb descendants contact me based on close cousin DNA matches in 23&Me. In one case, the person spelled his surname quite differently than the way it normally appears in the Kolb records, and had not gotten very far with his genealogy research as a result. The other case was an adoptee who had been able to locate his birth family, and had pretty good idea of which ancestral lines he belonged to. In both cases, I was able to provide these individuals with a substantial amount of information that they did not previously have.

Generally, we are able to provide Frank descendants with a full report on their Frank ancestors, starting with the ancestor who immigrated from Frank, back to at least the first settlers list. For some surnames, German origin research has been done so that the report extends several generations back into Germany. The amount of time devoted to each query varies widely. In some cases, we already have all of the information in the database and it is a simple matter of printing a report. In other situations, the person’s surnames have not been extensively researched and putting together the family tree requires hours of paging through church records. This process has been made more efficient over the last year by the fact that many of our church records are now translated and can be more easily searched.

Thanks to two wonderful translators, we continue to make progress on our collection of records from Russia. Barry Heimbigner has moved on to translating Frank death records after finishing most of the German-language Frank marriage and birth records. Tanja Schell has continued to work on the Russian-language Kolb military records.

At the present time, translations are done for the German-language birth records for the years 1839-1886, more than 14,500 birth records. The years 1887-1896 are missing. The birth records for 1896-1906 are in Russian and are yet to be translated. The German-language marriage records for 1839-1891 are almost all translated, more than 3,000 records. The marriage records for 1892-1910 are in Russian and are yet to be translated. The death records are currently being translated. We have death records in German from 1839-1868, and from 1877-1891, then in Russian from 1892-1901 and 1904.

We have uncovered several issues with the Frank Census over the last few years. First, there was conflicting information about whether an 1897 census for Frank actually existed. Second, as we worked our way through the church records, we started finding discrepancies between the AHSGR translation of the census and what we were seeing in the church records. Families appeared to be missing from the AHSGR census book. In order to determine the extent of the problem, we placed two orders for records with the Saratov Archive. We had one surname, Jaeger, which appeared in the church records but not in the census book. We placed an order requesting any 1834 and 1857 census records for Jaeger families. When the records arrived, we had confirmation that the families were omitted entirely from the AHSGR census book. The Jaeger family records that came from Saratov also included women’s maiden names in the 1857 census, which we already suspected were missing from the AHSGR Frank census book since we knew that they were missing from the AHSGR Kolb census book. The second order was an experiment to determine whether Saratov had the 1897 census. We picked one of my family names, Lapp, and requested all of the 1834, 1857, and 1897 census records for that surname from Saratov. The result was that Saratov states it does not have the 1897 census for Frank. The Lapp 1857 records from Saratov also have women’s maiden names.

In addition to church records for Frank, the Volgograd archive has several items described as “Family Lists” and “Lists of Inhabitants.” We had previously looked into getting the 1887 Family list, but were told by the archive that the pages were too large to photocopy. They are now able to make images of large-format items (though not very good quality) so I was able to get the pages from the 1887 Family list for the Lapp family. I also requested Lapp family pages from 1898 and 1910 “Lists of Inhabitants,” but those documents do not appear to contain useful genealogy information.

Doris and I both attended the AHSGR convention in Ft. Collins. There was an excellent turnout for the convention, which resulted in an overflow crowd for our Frank Canton meeting. The “Area Group” structure is difficult for us to manage. I’m not sure how many people we had exactly – it was standing room only in our assigned conference room – and you really can’t accomplish anything in an hour with that many people. We did have another hour the next day, but setting up and then taking down computers and printers (and trying to find tables to put them on) eats up a lot of that time. What we really need is a two-hour time slot at the end of a day, in a room with tables, so that we can settle in and answer questions and print reports for people, and not leave until everyone has been helped. We just were not able to get to everyone that wanted to go over their family data with us.

One of the speakers at the AHSGR convention was Professor Tatiana Plokhotnjuk of the North Caucasus Federation University. Her area of study is Germans in the North Caucasus. I spent quite a bit of time with her during the convention, learning about the German settlement of the Caucasus. There were a number of families that left Frank in the 1830s and 1840s to move to the Caucasus, so finding records that might document these people has been on our wish list for a long time. AHSGR has a copy of her book entitled “The German population of the North Caucasus: the socio-economic, political and religious life (the last quarter of the XVIII – mid XX century.)” Hopefully a translation of this book will yield some usable leads for further research.

The highlight of the year for me personally was my second trip to Russia. Michael Fyler and I traveled around the former Frank Canton with Tanja Schell, and Tanja’s aunt Vera and cousin Dennis. We stayed at the hotel in Zhirnovsk, which put us within a short drive of everyone and everything that we wanted to visit. We were able to visit with two elderly German ladies who both survived the 1941 deportation – Katherine Hoff, who lives in Frank, and Maria Reichel, who lives in Dietel. We were able to get inside the Borel Mill (south of Hussenbach). We visited the local history rooms inside both the Dietel school and the Frank library, and spent time talking to the educators who keep local history alive at both places. We also visited Kratzke, Walter, Kolb, Frank Khutor and Walter Khutor. We even found the remains of what had once been Klein Walter. We visited the local archive in Zhirnovsk. They have some materials that may be of interest to genealogy researchers, such as lists of names assigned to collective farms. We were able to look at the lists for our villages and saw many familiar names. We met also with Alexander Spack (proprietor of the Wolgadeutsche.net web site), Vladimir Kraniev (a photographer who has taken many German village photos) and Vladimir Kakorin (also a photographer of German villages and one of our Facebook friends).

Maggie Hein

December 26, 2013

Frankreich 2013 Village Report

Frankreich Samara Volga, Map 6, Quadrant E-8, Frankreich 50 09 N 46 38 E

Surnames for Frankreich: Ehrlich Eichmann Geier Lattner Lorenz Messerschmidt Reich Schmidt Schwab Wunsch Ziegler. The source list of these Village surnames was the 1857 Census from Brent Mai received in the early part of 2010.

Frankreich was founded in 1861 by Lutheran colonists resettling from Galka, Shcherbakovka, and Schwab.

The solution was to found new villages, called daughter colonies, in parts of the Lower Volga region were no villages existed. Most of these villages were on the east side of the Volga River.

With all of the startup activity in establishing a source of information on the villages; I have not been able to post to a standard website.

Leland Riffel

http://www.volgagerman.net/Graf.htm

Friedenberg 2013 Village Coordinator Annual Report

I really don’t have much to report as I only just became the Village Coordinator for Friedenberg last week. Hopefully more to report next December.

A little background: My great grandmother Amalia Lehning was born in Friedenberg in 1896. She was one of two daughters to Johann Heinrich Lehning and Catharina Elisabeth Eichmann. Amalia emigrated to Rhein, Saskatchewan with her sister Katharine Lehning (wife of Frederich Beitz) in Feb 1913.

In 1915, she married my great grandfather Heinrich Stieglitz in Rhein, Saskatchewan. Together they had 10 children.

I look forward to working with everyone in the upcoming years and wish you all Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2014!

Brenda Silvey

Village Coordinator for Friedenberg

Galka 2013 VC Report

Church records available for Galka from the Russian Archive in Volgograd are: Births 1863-1884, 1901-1902, deaths 1904, and marriages 1894, 1895, and 1905. A few additional records were added to the Galka database for some hard to read pages of the records

During 2013, I had 20 requests from people concerning people from Galka, and their descendants. Requests were received from Russia, Germany, the United States, Argentina and Australia. The primary means of communication for things related to Galka are through a Facebook page, the Galka website: http://www.galkagr.org/ , the Galka mailing list with instructions at: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/RUS/RUS-SARATOV-GALKA.html, and there is a private mailing list for people who have contributed towards the purchase of the church records.

During 2013, additions to the Galka database included tracing families who immigrated to the United States, Canada and Argentina. Additional information on people and descendants of immigrants from Galka was added from several large obituary collections. I continue to do research on the descendants of Galka people who immigrated to the United States and Canada.

Gary Martens

Galka VC

Glueckstal Colonies 2013 Village Coordinator Report

I received a request for assistance regarding relatives who stayed in Russia (the first in over two years) and am working with that individual,

best regards,

Homer Rudolf

1711 Bellevue Ave — #D914

Richmond, VA 23227

804/262-4174

Göbel 2013 Village Coordinator Report

Map 6, coordinates B7

Goebel A.K.A. Gebel, Goebel, Göbel, Ust-Gräsnucha, Ust-Grjasnucha, Ust-Grjaznucha, Ust-Gryaznukha, Ust-Grasnukha, or Ust-Graesnucha:

A Russian Catholic German village situated on the western side of the Volga.

I have been the Village Coordinator for Goebel since September 2009. I am continuing to add to the village chart of names, births and marriages known regarding the village of Goebel. I am currently using Family Tree Maker. I received AHSGR information, files, links, databases and materials in addition to the 1798, 1816/1834 and 1850/1857 census reports I had already obtained from AHSGR, Rosemary Larson and Brent Mai respectively. I also have a copy of Pleve’s Vol II with the FSL for Goebel. I also have Göbel birth records (1894-1900) acquired from the Volgograd archive, with the help of Kevin Rupp.

I had approximately 5 different people contact me this year regarding the Village of Goebel, with two being a new contact and the remainder being continuation of Goebel contacts made in previous years. I was able to help most folks out with at least some information they did not previously have. I also share information with other VCs with Goebel-related questions and some common surname contacts, especially among the Roman Catholic villages. Most contacts were from the U.S., but I also have been enjoying exchanges with contacts from Canada and Russia.

Ben Markel

Goebel Village Coordinator

Gnadenfeld 2013 Village Report

Gnadenfeld, (Russian name Kirovskoye), small “daughter” colony, located in the Samara Province, on the weisenseite (meadow side) of the Volga, Quandrant E-5, Map #6 (Stumpp), District of Krasny-Kut.

This past year I assisted people researching the following Gnadenfeld-Moor families: Rose, Rehm, Kaiser, Wunder, Korell and Yakel. Some of the researchers are descendants from families who remained in Russia,later deported, and are now living in Germany. Their family records were either lost or destroyed and they have information on their families starting from 1880 to 1920. Since my information goes only to 1857, I have not been able to be of much help.

I continue to collect surnames from Gnadenfeld and the “mother” colony of Moor, including ship records, declarations of intent, naturalization records,census records and obituaries.

Irma A. Waggoner, V.C.

iawagg9@gmail.com

Graf, Samara, Volga, 2013 Village Report for Graf

I have not received to many requests on this village this year. I plan to start a notebook on the requests I receive. I do get a number from Germany and Russia each year as well as South America.

I received a book from Corina Hirt from South America called “Chronicles of the Past: Looking for Roots of the Volga Germans: by Maria Stang (Cronicas De Otros Tiempos), the book was written in 2004. The book contains many families from 1878-1931 and includes a national census of 1895 from that area. I am going to submit the book to AHSGR as a possible translation project.

I continue to operate my website, www.volgagerman.net and update my Graf site, www.volgagerman.net/Graf.htm

I am still working on getting all the families from the 1878 family list a couple of families at a time. Those family names that I have received so far are:

Ø BACH

Ø BOLLIG

Ø SHAMNE

Ø DACK

Ø GEIER

Ø HAAS

Ø HEPP

Ø HERRMANN

Ø HOFFMANN

Ø KNOLL

Ø MEIER

Ø ROHLEDER

Ø SCHAEFER

Ø SCHMIDT

Ø SCHUVIE

Ø WAGNER

Ø WASINGER

Ø WINDHOLZ

Resources available at this time include:

1. Kulberg lists

2. First Settlers lists

3. 1834 Census

4. 1850 Census

5. 1857 Census

6. 1878 Family List – Incomplete

7. 1895 Family List – Complete

8. Birth Records for the years: 1889, 1890, 1894, 1897, 1908, 1911, 1914

9. Marriage Records for the years: 1912 & 1914

10. Death Records for the years: 1890, 1911, 1914

11. Maps, which are available on the web site to look at.

12. Memorial Records

13. Die Einwanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Danemark und deren weitere Auswanderung nach Russland in den Jahren 1759-1766 (The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766.

I was very fortunate this year that Tanja Hermann Nyberg found some memorial records for me for Graf. These are also available to look at on my website. As a goal this year I hope to keep better track of the requests that I receive.

Memorial Cards: I continue to collected Memorial Cards/Obituary Cards from those that came to Ellis County Kansas from the Volga. Many of these are from the very first settlers and contain a photo of the person, birth and death records.

I use Family Tree maker at this time to collect all my data from all my villages and and from Ellis County, Kansas. Currenlty I have

101,822 people listed on my database.

Kevin Rupp

Village Coordinator for Graf

January 1, 2014

Kevin Rupp

Grimm Colony 2013 VC Report

John Groh and Henry Schmick continue to grow the Grimm data base. As we add data, we share it with each other so that our data bases are the same, most importantly, accurate. At times difficult, as we go back to the Kulberg lists, the First Settlers list, and each of the Census Revision lists. We are adding to the Grimm 1897 census name by name and still are not able to make a connection back to the original settlers in many cases. However we have had success in many cases this past year. We had several inquires during the Convention, some we are still working on, some created more questions than answers.

The sad news is Ken Leffler is no longer working on this project, his daughters gave his collection away, we were not able to get a copy of his data base.

We look forward to the coming year and the wealth of information we will gain and disperse.

Grimm VCs:

Johan Groh

Henry Schmick

Hölzel Village Coordinator Report for 2013

We are proud to announce that Hölzel Colony a Catholic Village on the Wiesenseite or meadow side east of the Volga River also has Village Coordinators for the first time in AHSGR history. Cristian Jungblut and his wife Eliana Prost volunteered to help as Village Coordinators with me for both Preuss and Hölzel. They have ancestry in both of these villages along with Dehler Colony. Much of the outward migration from Hölzel and neighboring Preuss migrated to Argentina very early populating early Catholic colonies in Argentina along with other settlers from Brabander and Dehler.

Very early in my Volga German research I saw a need to study additional families from other colonies because of the intensive movements recorded in the 1798 CENSUS OF THE GERMAN COLONIES ALONG THE VOLGA by Professor Brent Mai. I soon found out that I not only had ancestry from Brabander, Dehler, Rothammel, and Seewald, but I also had direct lines out of Hölzel and Preuss with relatives moving to Seelmann.

For Hölzel Colony we are also in a better position than when I volunteered to be the Brabander and Dehler Village Coordinator in 2006. We have the 1767, 1798, and 1834 Census translations. The 1850 and 1857 Hölzel Census are on track to be translated by Brent Mai very soon. Additionally we have been able to obtain copies of the original hand written Russian version of the 1850 and 1857 Hölzel Census. I also have microfilm that contains segments of the Hölzel Church Records untranslated from Russian. I am anxiously awaiting the translation of the 1857 Hölzel Census which will also contain surnames of the wives which allows establishment of family ties that can not be made without the wives surnames.

I have direct ancestry from this family that went to Brabander.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Josefstal-Skripalovo-Russia/476747895677003

Jim Osborne Village Coordinator

Huck, Saratov, Volga 2013 Village Report for Huck

2013 began with a flurry of correspondence from two persons in Germany.

Thank goodness for Google Translator because German was the only language possible to use in all the messages, sometimes one a day over a three week period. Fortunately I did have information for the Kindsvater and Schneider surnames that assisted both researchers and in return I received family details from their records and several photographs of persons living in Huck in the early 1800s.

You’ve heard my tale about the lack of any village Huck records for the period 1858 to 1888 many times in these yearly reports. That problem continues and I received 11 inquiries this year asking for assistance about persons born during those years. I did learn from an Engels report that Huck marriage lists were available from Engels for 1864 and 1892-1911 plus a family list from 1879. I thought some of my and other researcher problems would be solved by those records so I contracted to purchase copies, beginning first with only two surnames. My joy turned to dismay when I was informed the 1879 family list ‘can no longer be found’ and the only available marriage lists were really for 1878 to 1882 with no guarantee about the amount of information in those fonds. The initial report of available records was from the Engels Archive so the change was disappointing. I did obtain what was available but it was far less than I had hoped (and far more expensive than I had envisioned).

I did have one inquiry asking for help to locate information about a Schneider grandmother born in Huck and known to be living in Canada in 1908. I asked and coordinator Mabel Kiessling sent me two excellent resources for research in Canada – one at the Library and Archives of Canada and the other the Alberta Family History Society. The researcher was elated to receive those addresses and later wrote that she not only found some useful records but was able to correspond with relatives she never knew about

Dennis Zitterkopf

Village coordinator for Huck

Hussenbach 2013 Village Report

The Hussenbach Facebook page continues to generate interest and there are lively conversations among people making connections for many different family lines. I have created digital file folders for 29 different family surnames with information shared with me and included in the Village database.

I am continuing to collect funds for the 1897 Census for the Hussenbach village. Funds are being sought to purchase and translate this census. Contact me for more information or to help with this project.

I attended the Convention at Fort Collins, Colorado and was able to meet with several Hussenbach villagers on a one on one basis. The attendance at the Frank Canton meeting was standing room only and each Village Coordinator gave a brief introduction of their work in the village. There was a second meeting where the coordinators were able to give some one on one assistance to members of their village. I was also available at various times in the AHSGR Library room and met with villagers there.

Last year I created an Excel page showing which Family names are found in different sources, including: Kuhlberg lists, Volga transport list, 1798, 1816, 1834, 1850, 1857 censuses, Volgograd records to 1845, and Hussenbach database. You can download the file from my Hussenbach web page: http://hussenbach.weebly.com/names-found-in-records.html. It is 16 pages, and includes some of the names found in the daughter colonies of Ährenfeld, Langenfeld, Neu-Bauer and Neu-Hussenbach and their original colony if known.

Translation of the Volgograd records is an ongoing process. So far 11,301 individual records have been translated. David Nelson ably translated all of the records past 1896 that were in Russian. I have been working on the remainder.

Hussenbach Records found in the Volgograd Archives:

For Linevo Osero:
Births: 1818-1838 (2,647 records), 1839-1851 (1,854 records), 1896-1904 (2,468 records), 1906-1909 (1,049 records), have been translated; 1852-1860, 1892-1895, still have to be translated. Records are missing for part of 1904, all of 1905, and part of 1906.
Marriages: 1818-1838, (399 records), 1902-1908, (430 records) translated.
Deaths: 1818-1838 (588 records), 1900-1902 (421 records), 1903-1908 (1,444 records) translated. 1839-1858, 1862-1881, 1891-1895, still have to be translated.
For Gashon:
Births: 1861-1876, 1877-1887, 1888-1891, still have to be translated.
Marriages: 1878-1902, still have to be translated.
Deaths: 1882-1890, 1896-1899, still have to be translated.

The Gashon records have been given to Shirley Ainsley, the Village Coordinator for Neu-Hussenbach (Gashon).

The Hussenbach database continues to grow. I now have 36,761 names in the database. I appreciate all of the information fellow Hussenbachers have shared with me. I have found numerous times that the information from one person combined with another’s can be the connection that links that family back to the German immigrant ancestor. Please send me anything you have on your family that you wish to share.

I continue to receive requests for information from the Hussenbach web page at: Hussenbach (Linevo Osero), the Facebook page at: Hussenbach (Linevo Osero) and Neu-Hussenbach (Gashon) Russia Descendants, and email. I recevied 12 inquiries off of the webpage, my Facebook page for Hussenbach now has 123 members. I received email from 29 individuals concerning different family lines and other general village information resulting in 280 emails going back and forth. Facebook posts can generate similar results with many postings generating multiple comments. Connections have been made with people from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Germany.

Susan Hopp Nakaji

Hussenbach Village Coordinator

susan.nakaji@sbcglobal.net

Johannestal, Beresan, Odessa 2013 Annual Report

I had four queries on Johannestal. One query was particularly interesting.

His family emigrated to Argentina in the early 20th century. It turned out my grandfather and his great grandfather were half-brothers! Our common great-grandfather was married twice and his great-grandfather came from the first marriage. I knew nothing about the one son from the first marriage; I assumed that he died early or headed off to parts unknown in Russia. He want to Argentina about the same time my grandfather’s family came to the US.

Ray Heinle

Gilbert, Arizona, USA

GRHS and AHSGR Village Coordinator For Johannestal, Beresan, Odessa, Russia http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/johannestal.html

AHSGR Village Coordinator for Lauwe, Volga, Russia http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/lauwe/lauwe.html

Josefstal 2013 Village Coordinator Report

Once again there has been little or no request for material about Josefstal….a very small village Catholic located near Kamyshin. I received one request from Germany for information.

I have started a Facebook page for the village:

and of course there is the Josefstal blog:

http://josefstal.wordpress.com/

My intention this next year is to scan and place online many of the documents I have received about the village from Russian archives in Volgograd. All of these have already been donated to AHSGR for their files.

I am trying to track down the 1897 Russian census for Josefstal, which I have been told is in Saratov.

Best wishes to my fellow researchers!

Edward (Ted) Gerk

Jost 2013 Village Report

Their were several inquiries for the Village of Jost in 2013, from the U.S., Russia, and Germany, including Dauer, Ehoff, Heckel, Flemming, Meisner, Merk, Schwabenland, and Schledewitz.

The Jost facebook page continues to attract researches from Russia, Germany and Canada, as well as the U.S. We love ancestral family photos! The Jost website http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jost/ includes a link to Jost on Facebook.

Research. Mila Koretnikov has confirmed that a 1917 Jost agricultural census is held in Samara. The record includes only names of head of household, ethnicity and statistical data on cattle, land, crops, etc. As this would be of little or no benefit to Jost genealogy, I have no plan to pursue it.

I add family data from Ship Lists, Obituaries and Census Records to the database as I receive requests for information.

BETH Mueller-Rohn DAVENPORT

Jost (Popovkina) Village Coordinator

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jost/

Kamenka 2013 Village Coordinator Annual Report

This year requests for Kamenka information have been less than other years.

Requests came from Canada, Argentina, and Russia as well as the US.

At the present time, I am searching in Switzerland for my Wiesner ancestors.

In the 1600’s the name was spelled Wysner, Wisner, Weisner, Wissner, Wisener, and Visner.

I have just begun the search in Switzerland. Luxembourg, the Mainz area, Bavaria, Alsace have all been searched. The 30 years war had much to do with the movement of families.

I have found a Jacob Weisner in Arosa Friedhof, Graubunden, Switzerland.at this website:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gs&. I use this website a lot. Many times the obituary is shown along with the grave marker in the US.

Rosemary Larson

VC for Kamenka, a Catholic village in the Volga area.

http://www.webbitt.com/volga/kamenka/

Kautz 2013 Village Report

It has been a fairly standard year for Kautz research. I processed 29 obituaries received from mainly Henry Schmick and others which matched against my Kautz database. As of today, the database now contains 28,141 individuals and 9,284 marriages. The software I use is Family Treemaker for Windows – 2006.

I correspond with many people from the United States who have Kautz ties and I am normally able to provide substantive information to them from their initial query. In many cases, I’m able to get additional information on their families. I am communicating with two individuals in Germany at this time. They are providing family information and photographs. The information is then entered into the Kautz database with citations.

For the past two months I have been working on a mileage chart for Volga-German villages. I used GPS coordinates from CVGS and AHSGR as a starting point to get visual identification of those villages through Google Earth. I then refined those coordinates to hone in on primary intersections in each village. Those refined coordinates became the basis for measuring distances among the villages “as the crow flies”. The two mileage charts in spreadsheet format have been completed, one for 64 Bergseite villages (west of the Volga) and the larger for 115 of about 410 Wiesenseite villages and farmsteads (khutors). Clicking on village names takes you to the websites of villages well documented at the Center for Volga-German Studies (CVGS), a great resource for Volga German genealogy in Portland, Oregon. I am very fortunate to have CVGS at Concordia University available to me for a short 20 minute drive. CVGS is in the process of updating their village web pages with more precise GPS information. From the Stumpp map I posted grid locations of each village into the spreadsheets.

Copying and pasting GPS coordinates found in each of the spreadsheets to Google Earth will give you a great understanding of the layout of the land of our ancestors. Distances between villages are measured in Miles, Miles to the tenth of a mile, Kilometers, and Versts. All distance measurements are stored to two decimal positions but are normally shown as whole numbers (rounded up or down). An Excel Spreadsheet viewer is available from Microsoft for free. Contact me for more details. Brent Mai, Steve Schreiber, and others have been instrumental in the success of this project. The spreadsheet(s) can be taken to OfficeMax for an impressive printing experience. Proceeds from this work will go towards Kautz research, CVGS and Oregon AHSGR Chapter activities.

I received Kautz parish death records from CVGS for the years 1834-1865. These records have been matched against the Kautz database and an additional 300+ villagers have been identified as new. Many others now show death and birth date information. It will take approximately another two months to complete processing of these death records. I’m hoping my cousin Dorothy Brandner will be able to fill in causes of death for these individuals as she has done with previous Kautz death records in the past.

On October 9, Mila received funds for my acquisition of 550 pages of Kautz parish records from the Volgograd Archives, births 1871-1891, 1902-1918, and marriages 1903-1918. Kautz births for 1852-1871 have been misplaced and should turn up sometime in the future. The ordered records should arrive sometime in early January. The translation and posting should keep me busy well into the first half of 2014, if not later.

The Kautz group in Facebook continues to attract members. I posted a lot of Kautz material to that group in 2013. It’s located at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/425613657484126/.

A quick peek under the tree shows that Santa has brought a scanner capable of handling 11”x17” paper so I’ll be able to digitize all the Kautz parish records when I have a bit of free time.

My activities have also involved becoming a member of the Board of Directors for the AHSGR Oregon Chapter. I also have published the chapter newsletter for most of the year due to the ill health of our previous editor. It comes out every two months. The next issue should be available just before Christmas.

Michael Frank

Village Coordinator for Kautz (Werschinka)

Klosterdorf 2013 Village Report

This has been a very quiet year for these villages. I have received no inquiries.

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Wright VC, Black Sea Villages

Kolb Database annual report 2013 Village of Submitted by Maggie Hein and Doris Evans

At the present time, translations are done for the German-language birth records for the years 1839-1886, more than 14,500 birth records. The years 1887-1896 are missing. The birth records for 1896-1906 are in Russian and are yet to be translated. The German-language marriage records for 1839-1891 are almost all translated, more than 3,000 records. The marriage records for 1892-1910 are in Russian and are yet to be translated. The death records are currently being translated. We have death records in German from 1839 – 1868, and from 1877 – 1891, then in Russian from 1892-1901 and 1904.

In addition to church records for Frank, the Volgograd archive has several items described as “Family Lists” and “Lists of Inhabitants”. We had previously looked into getting the 1887 Family list, but were told by the archive that the pages were too large to photocopy. They are now able to make images of large-format items (though not very good quality) so I was able to get the pages from the 1887 Family list for the Lapp family. I also requested Lapp family pages from 1898 and 1910 “Lists of Inhabitants”, but those documents do not appear to contain useful genealogy information.

The highlight of the year for me personally was my second trip to Russia. Michael Fyler and I travelled around the former Frank Canton with Tanja Schell, and Tanja’s aunt Vera and cousin Dennis. We stayed at the hotel in Zhirnovsk, which put us within a short drive of everyone and everything that we wanted to visit. We were able to visit with two elderly German ladies who both survived the 1941 deportation – Katherine Hoff, who lives in Frank, and Maria Reichel, who lives in Dietel. We were able to get inside the Borel Mill (south of Hussenbach). We visited the local history rooms inside both the Dietel school and the Frank library, and spent time talking to the educators who keep local history alive at both places. We also visited Kratzke, Walter, Kolb, Frank Khutor and Walter Khutor. We even found the remains of what had once been Klein Walter. We visited the local archive in Zhirnovsk. They have some materials that may be of interest to genealogy researchers, such as lists of names assigned to collective farms. We were able to look at the lists for our villages and saw many familiar names. We met also with Alexander Spack (proprietor of the Wolgadeutsche.net web site), Vladimir Kraniev (a photographer who has taken many German village photos) and Vladimir Kakorin (also a photographer of German villages and one of our Facebook friends).

Maggie Hein

December 26, 2013

Kraft 2013 Village Report

I received genealogy research inquiries from thirteen individuals this year.

I was able to provide at least some support for all of them, but could not always identify the direct link to their Kraft ancestors.

Ron Burkett

Kraft Village Coordinator

Krasnoyar Village Report

There have been very few inquiries for Krasnoyar. Most inquiries have come through George Valko (my cousin) either from his Web pages or through facebook.

Susie Weber Hess

Kukkus 2013 Village Report

There was little activity or queries this year. I added a couple names to the Hergenrader line and I received a list of 5 marriages. I am not fond of the new way of doing village night at convention, but I did have a nice group of persons who I did get the opportunity to meet with after the group presentation. Last year I felt that we were cut off from interacting with anyone who wanted information about the village database. This year was much better. I was able to share a picture that was very meaningful to one of the persons I met at the village group meeting.

Best wishes to all,

Eleanor Sissell.

Lauwe (Yablonovka) 2013 Annual Report

I had about four queries related to Lauwe. Three of those were related to Lauwe families who went to the Caucasus. One of those I had to convince that the person whom she though was her great-grandfather was really a great uncle who raised her grandmother.

I had the pleasure of attending a Goeringer family reunion in Oklahoma this summer. There I met not only many cousins whom I did not know but some of the real heavy-duty family historians.

Ray Heinle

Gilbert, Arizona, USA

GRHS and AHSGR Village Coordinator For Johannestal, Beresan, Odessa, Russia http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/johannestal.html

AHSGR Village Coordinator for Lauwe, Volga, Russia http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/lauwe/lauwe.html

Louis, Samara, Volga, 2013 Village Report for Louis

This is a village that I have accepted from Thelma Mills who retired as VC. I VC this village jointly with Denise Grau. This village is of perticlure interest to me since my grandmother was born her in 1907 before coming to the states in 1909.

I was able to visit this village in 2009 and took a number of photos of the homes. The city is larger then I had expected.

I have received a couple of inquiries for 2013 and will start keeping a notebook of such emails, something that I should have done years ago with my villages.

The items that I currently have on file are:

1. Die Einwanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Danemark und deren weitere Auswanderung nach Russland in den Jahren 1759-1766 (The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766.

2. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766

3. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767)

4. 1798 Census

5. 1834 Census

6. 1850 Census

7. 1857 Census (Thanks to Brent Mai who edited for me)

8. 1893 Family Lists (Material is in raw data and not compiled at this time)

9. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3

10. Various letters from Louis, Russia that were printed in the local paper.

11. Marriage records – 1848, 1849, 1850, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1902,

1903, 1904, 1906

12. Birth records – 1863 (a few names), 1888, 1890, 1909, and various pieces.

13. Obtained the birth records of Bishop Josef Alois Kessler

14. A photograph of a drawing of the high altar from the Catholic Church in Russia. (Given as a gift)

I use Family Tree maker at this time to collect all my data from all my villages and and from Ellis County, Kansas. Currenlty I have

101,822 people listed on my database.

Kevin Rupp Village Coordinator for Louis.

January 1, 2014

http://www.volgagerman.net/Louis.htm

Kevin Rupp

Maienheim Village Coordinator Report for 2013

By Jim Osborne and Andy Kroneberger

Maienheim was a “Daughter Colony” of Dehler. It was formed on the Steppe about 50 kilometer directly east of Dehler in 1928 with movement of 150 Dehler villagers to Maienheim. It is not to be confused with Mannheim a Lutheran Village north and west of it. Maienheim deserves a dot on the AHSGR Volga German Colony map. Dr. Mattias Haagen PhD, a prominent guest speaker at an AHSGR Convention during the 1990s wrote about Maienheim in a German Article published in Heimatsbuch. He also included the map drawn by Professor Trausch from the collective memories of Dr. Haagen, and a 3rd cousin named Klemmens Stoessel. Andy Kroneberger saw the original map at the home of Professor Mattias Trausch in Germany during a visit nearly 10 years ago. Mattias Trausch and Andy Kroneberger are 1st cousins. Katharina Kroneberger the mother of Professor Trausch and Andreas Kroneberger the father of Andy are sister and brother. It was Isdor Trausch the older brother of Professor Trausch that was able to arrange smuggling of Margaretha Stoessel, Andy’s mother out of Dehler in 1927 when it was impossible for Volga Germans to get out of Russia. Both Andy and Mattias Trausch also share direct line Haagen ancestry.

By late 1941 Maienheim was evacuated and all of the residents stripped of their citizenship and sent to Forced Labor Camps in Kazakhstan. By the time that villagers from Maienheim were again allowed to travel with some of their rights restored after 1960 only a few remnants of buildings still existed upon their return to their homes. The 2011 project for Maienheim will be to recreate a list of inhabitants of Maienheim or find a list of the 150 settlers that moved there in 1928. We will also be trying to record the names of those that were exiled in 1941 and where they were sent to.

Valentina Masson was born 1936 in Maienheim the daughter of Johannes Masson born ca 1910 in Dehler and Amalia Günther born 1913 in Dehler. She now lives in Germany and has visited both the ancestral home in Dehler Colony plus the remains of Mainenheim. Valentina’s ancestral roots also include the Beck, Martel, Maibach, and Schell families.

If you have any information on the families that lived in Maienheim please contact me. I am interested in obtaining a list of the settlers that went to Maienheim from Dehler in 1928 and making contact with their descendants. I am a direct descendant from the Büchner, Führ, Kroneberger, and Stoessel families from Dehler and related to many of the families that settled in Maienheim.

http://www.volgagerman.net/Mariental.htm

Jim Osborne Village Coordinator

Mariental 2013 Village Report (Tonkoshurovka), Samara, Volga

In addition to Kevin’s report below, I can add that I have received several inquiries this past year and was able to assist in providing information for several families including Becker, Dahlheimer, Eberle, Hansen, Gassman, Gerstner, Hild, Kreutzer, Paul, Seitz, and Wido/Witto.

During 2013 we also published an edition of the Mariental, Louis, and Chasselois newsletter. I’ve been working on obtaining obituaries and immigration records for persons born in Mariental. I’ve started translating the 1892 Mariental baptisms which were filmed by the LDS. My current project has been to locate, copy and index naturalization filings for Marientalers who immigrated to the U.S.

In addition to the website that Kevin Rupp is maintaining for Mariental ( http://www.volgagerman.net/Mariental.htm ) there is also a facebook page for Mariental, Louis/Chasselois (https://www.facebook.com/groups/160243664047778/)

Since becoming Co-Village Coordinator for Mariental in 2012, I have had a fun and interesting time meeting fellow Mariental researchers, sharing and learning from them. Each family has such interesting information to share. My thanks goes out to all those who have shared information with me!

Denise Grau

Co-Village Coordinator for Mariental

Kevin Rupp wrote: (Tonkoshurovka), Samara, Volga 2013 Village Report for Marintal

I am a Co-coordinator with Denise Grau who took over the Village of Mariental after Thelma Mills retired. I maintain the website http:// www.volgagerman.net/Mariental.htm after moving pages from Thelma’s site to my www.volgagerman.net site. I personally have not received many inquieries this past year, but Denise Grau has and will place that into her co-report.

The items that I currently have on file are:

2. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766

3. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767)

4. 1798 Census

5. 1834 Census

6. 1850 Census

7. 1857 Census

8. 1895 Family Lists (Material is in raw data and Brent Mai is helping to put this into book form, hopefully available by the Spring.)

9. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3

10. Various letters from Mariental, Russia that were printed in the local paper.

11. Marriage records – 1888 (Not complete)

12. Birth records – 1906 (various birth records on specific families)

13. Death records – 1879, 1880

14. Various Articles on the colony

15. Books:

a. Die Kolonie Mariental an der Wolga by Albert Obholz, printed in 2011 in German and Russian. This is an excellent sourcebook on this village. They are now working on a revised edition. It is part of the Historischen Forschungverin der Deutschen aus Russland, Band 9.

b. Aus der Geschichte der Kolonie Mariental an der Wolga – Anton Schneider, 1999

c. Der Lohn fur die Treue, Robert Korn, pg. 38-41 on the village of Mariental. (I will be donating two copies of this book to AHSGR for their library and hopefully a translation project)

Because of the large amount of Volga-Germans that settled in my area, my website deals with a variety of villages. I am Village Coordinator for some and some I maintain on my site from friends. Any new information that I obtain is posted on those respective sites as well as the name of the Village Coordinator and what they may have available. Memorial Cards: I continue to collected Memorial Cards/Obituary Cards from those that came to Ellis County Kansas from the Volga. Many of these are from the very first settlers and contain a photo of the person, birth and death records. I use Family Tree maker at this time to collect all my data from all my villages and from Ellis County, Kansas. Currently I have101,822 people listed on my database.

Kevin Rupp Village Co-cordinator for Mariental.

January 1, 2014

Messer Annual Report

I received several requests for information this year and was able to help with nearly all of them. The Messer distribution list continues to expand. I sent out two Messer Newsletters during the year which were well received I obtained permission from Olga Litzenberger to translate the Messer section of her book. I found a translator and one of the Messer descendants graciously agreed to edit the translation. I formatted the edited translation for printing and made copies available for purchase. The article was quite interesting and revealed details about Messer that were new to me. During the Ft. Collins Convention we had a Messer luncheon that was well attended. I plan to continue to work to build my Messer contact list and forward information of interest to Messer descendants.

Mike Meisinger mrm1970@aol.com

Molotchna 2013 Village Coordinators Report (Mennonite Colony):

Most of my inquiries involve the Molotchna Colonies (60 villages), but I occasionally have inquiries for the Chortitza Colonies (20 villages).

– the Huffnungsfeld Estate.

Other family names being researched by contacts this past year include Regier, Jantz, Duerksen, Unruh, Bergen, Loewen, Neufeld, Penner, Epp, and Dueck(Dyck).

Specific villages involved in the research contacts include Gnadenheim, Liebenau, Schardau in the Molotchna,

In addition to my comprehensive library for Mennonite research, I have the

1835 Census of the Molotchna Colony (also available at AHSGR library), the school censuses of many of the villages/colonies in the Molotschna, and access to many of the Mennonite family genealogies.

Karen Suderman Penner, VC for the Molochna, Taurida, Ukraine Colonies and the Chortitza, Ekaterinslav, Ukraine Colonies

Moor Village Report for 2013

2013 was a slower year for Moor research. This was partially due to a detached bicep muscle that causes difficulty typing and the lack of new information coming out of Russia. No newsletters were issued this year.

Although there appears to be some Moor church records at the various archives in Russia, the cost of obtaining copies is too prohibitive. The Moor group does not have a research fund.

On a more positive note, I was able to give a presentation in May about the significance of the Danish colonies (as demonstrated by the Eichhorn book), which preceded the establishment of the Volga colonies. Perhaps because of the disappointments our ancestors experienced in Denmark, or “the grass is greener” syndrome, Catherine’s Edict offered greater opportunities to some of these Danish colonists who accepted her invitation.

A few new ancestral German villages were uncovered. To date, we have at least partial information on approximately 25 percent of the Moor original founding families. Research has demonstrated that some of our “German” ancestors were in fact Huguenot refugees from France and Switzerland, and Walloon citizens from Belgium.

Work on issuing a new volume of German Origins is still in the making. My thanks to Herb Femling for helping on this mega task. We always welcome new recruits to this effort and stress the importance of sharing information with Dick Kraus and his German Origins project and Brent Mai on his Volga Origins website.

Wayne H. Bonner

Moor Co-VC

Muhlhausendorf 2013 Village Report

This has been a very quiet year for these villages. I have received no inquiries.

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Wright VC, Black Sea Villages

Neu Galka 2013 Village Report

Neu-Galka Samara Volga

Map 6, Quadrant E-8, Neu-Galka 50 02 N 46 53 E

Surnames for Neu-Galka: Albrecht Bauer Beichel Berg Bernhardt Borger Brunner Buchhammer Dahlinger Diehl Dienes Elsasser Fischer Frank Fuchs Hanschu Haas Hoffman Geier Jost Kloss Kandelin Klass Kock Koerbs (Kerbs) Kretz Langhofer Lattner Martin Meier Riffel Ruff Schwab Schneider Schantzebach Schick Schimpf Schmidt Schenk Sinner Simon Steinbach Stuertz Veit Wagner Weimer Weisheim Wiesner Ziegler The source list of these Village surnames was the 1857 Census from Brent Mai received in the early part of 2010.

Neu-Galka was founded in 1860 by Lutheran colonists resettling from Galka and Dobrinka. There were about 630 people who resettled in Neu Galka, with about 20 from Dobrinka and the remainder from Galka. Surnames of people that moved to Neu-Galka were Riffel, Weimer, Hanschu, Langhofer, Wagner, Dahlinger, Brunner, Haas, Hoffman, Bernhardt, Schmidt, Dienes and Ruff.After the deportation of 1941, the area occupied by the former village was absorbed into the nearby Russian town of Pallasovka and is today a neighborhood of Pallasovka.

The solution was to found new villages, called daughter colonies, in parts of the Lower Volga region were no villages existed. Most of these villages were on the east side of the Volga River

With all of the startup activity in establishing a source of information on the villages; I have not been able to post to a standard website.

Leland Riffel

Neu Messer Annual Report

Mid year I became the Village Coordinator for Neu Messer. Since nearly all of the people in Neu Messer came from Messer, most people who are interested in one are also interested in the other. My last Messer Newsletter included information on Neu Messer and I plan to continue to product a joint Newsletter for both colonies. I have started a Neu Messer data base and hope to add to it in the coming year so I can better answer queries.

Mike Meisinger mrm1970@aol.com

Neu-Moor 2013 VC report

The colony of Neu-Moor (Russian name Pogranichnyy), a “grand-daughter” Khutor (farmstead) formed in the 1920’s by people living in the “mother” colony of Moor. It was located in the Balzer District on the Bergseite (west or hilly side) of the Volga River, and was approximately 30 – 40 miles from the “mother” colony of Moor. It was on the left bank of the Peskovatka River,85 kilometers southwest of Saratov. Neu-Moor was a Lutheran village.

Very little information is available on Neu-Moor. So far there has been only one person seeking information on this colony–none in 2013.

Irma A. Waggoner, V.C.

iawagg9@gmail.com

Neu Jagodnoye 2013 Village Report

Neu Jagodnoye (Jagodnaya, Yagoda) was located 70 mi.ESE of Saratov and was founded in 1855. It was a daugter colony of Yagodnoye Polyana. I answered two or three e mail inquiries.

Laurin Wilhelm, San Antonio, TX

Neu-Norka 2013 Village Report

In 1852, by order of the Office of Foreign Settlers, German families left Norka to settle a new colony, officially called Neu-Norka. If this was a voluntary move it’s not clear, nor was the method of determining who should be relocated. Unlike the elevated terrain of Norka, which had a reliable source of spring water, the new colony was situated in a lower locality and the Ilovlya River which was dammed in many places to provide hydraulic power to the town mills. The change in climate was apparently unfavorable for the settlers as one out of four died within two years after their arrival. Per the 1857 Brent Mai census there were 65 families that settled there in 1852. To date I now have traced 35 of these families back thru Norka to their arrival in Norka in 1767.

I have had only two request which I was not able to help because their names were not listed in the Neu-Norka census and their births were well after the 1857 Norka census. I however was able to provide them with some research sources and directions. Other than that I spent the year building my data bank in which I now have over 10,000 names. I did attend the Portland, Org., reunion and was very impressed with Brent Mai’s library at the collage. I had no idea that Portland was another transplant from Norka.

Now for the rest of the story, I started forty years ago with my sister looking for my grandfather Georg Peter Schwartz, who disappeared in 1904 from Russia without a trace. For the last ten years after I retired I have been researching full time. I have traced on my mother’s side Eva Elisabeth Walter born 1900 in Neu-Norka, to Adam, Gobel, to my 6th great grandfather Johannes Spady b/1712, Austria.

My father Henry Schwartz was b/ 19 Dec 1894, listed as Norka, but no proof, same as my grandfather Georg Peter b/ abt. 1861, listed as Norka, but no proof. Early this year I contacted Dr. Mila Koretnikov and contracted her to research the Norka records on a one on one but found no trace. From the Johann Traugot Schwartz a family tree, there listed a Heinrich Schwartz b/ 1818, his wife Elisabeth Fischer b/1817, a daughter Anna Maria b/1839, two sons Johannes b/1841 (who was 11 years old), and Georg b/1844, that in 1852 moved to Neu-Norka. Once again I turned to Mila to research the Neu-Norka records with a list of family names. As most of you know after the 1857 census all records were lost in a fire. Again no trace of my father or grandfather. Then about two months ago I received an e-mail from Mila that she found a Neu-Norka birth record announcing the birth of a Johannes Schwartz b/Jan 20, 1902, (a cousin) to the parents: Johann Heinrich Schwartz (John Henry), (my grand uncle) and wife Katharina Elisabeth Adam. Now this Johann Heinrich (John Henry) is my grandfather’s younger brother who was raised by an Uncle named Haas. From a cousin in Canada who’s great grandfather was this Johann Heinrich who left Russia in 1911 has paper work indicating that his father was a Johannes an mother a Margaretha Haas, who died in Neu-Norka.

The bottom line with this birth record indicating that my family came from Neu-Norka and most likely that my grandfather disappeared from there. The fact that John Henry was drafted in the Russia Army in 1904 and my grandfather disappeared in 1904 is and always will be a mystery. I can not begin to tell you in a letter how much research I put in to this to come up with the conclusion that my father, grandfather was born in Neu-Norka and that my great grandfather Johannes b/ 6.11.1841 in Norka as listed in the Schwarz family tree.

Some things can not be 100% proven because if I only knew how to ask questions of my parents when I was a youngster even though I’m a first generation American born I would not have to do all this research. But it has been fun and I have learned a lot about the life and living of my parents and grandparents of the Germans from Russia.

Marvin L. Schwartz

Neu-Norka Village Coordinator

Neu Schoenfeld 2013 Village Report

Neu Schoenfeld (New Pretty Field) was a Protestant village located some 75 mi.SE of Saratov. It was founded after 1857. It was probably settled by folks from Schoenfeld and other nearby villages to the northwest

I have not been contacted by anyone from New Schoenfeld this year or in years past.

Laurin Wilhelm

San Antonio, TX.

Neu-Straub 2013 Annual Village Coordinator Report

Lillian Larwig, coordinator for Neu-Straub

I have had no inquries this year. I continue to add any information on the village to what I have already collected.

Neu Weimar 2013 Village Report

Neu-Weimar Samara Volga

Map 6, Quadrant E-8, Neu-Weimar 50 01 N 46 47 E

Surnames for Neu-Weimer: Abich Bathauer Bischoff Brauer Breyer Brunner Deisner Diehl Dieterle Eichmann Erbes Ernst Flath Frank Fritzler Gerlach Graff Grohs Hefele Heinrich Herbel Kahl Klauser Kretz Krispins Lotz Martin Meier Müller Neuwirt Nuss Peil Peter Rau Riel Rusch Schimpf Schlotthauer Schmidt Schmunk Schön Seifert Siebenlist Siegfried Simon Taudt Traudt Utz Vogel Weber Weimer Wilhelm Wolf Würtz The source list of these Village surnames was the 1857 Census from Brent Mai received in the early part of 2010.

Neu-Weimar was founded in 1861 as a Lutheran colony by colonists who relocated to Neu-Weimar came from Galka, Stephan, Schwab and Dobrinka.

The solution was to found new villages, called daughter colonies, in parts of the Lower Volga region were no villages existed. Most of these villages were on the east side of the Volga River.

With all of the startup activity in establishing a source of information on the villages; I have not been able to post to a standard website.

Leland Riffel

norka.judy.curtis@gmail.com

Neu-Weimar 2013 VC Report

No birth records have been found for the daughter colony of Neu-Weimar, although a few births in Neu-Weimar are listed in the Family List 1877-1891 for Dobrinka. There are marriage records covering the years 1894-1895, 1901, 1905 at the Russian Archives in Volgograd. There is an 1857 census or founders list for people that originally settled in Neu-Weimar, starting in 1861. These people came from Galka, Stephan, Schwab and Dobrinka.

During 2013, I had 1 email requesting information on people from Neu-Weimar.

Gary Martens

Neu-Weimar VC

Nieder-Monjou 2013 Village Report

We received queries, correspondence, or photographs from six individuals regarding the following Nieder-Monjou surnames: ANSCHUTZMUELLER,RAUSCHENBACH, ROSENGRUEN SCHMIDT, STUERTZand ULRICH.

We found out from an individual in Russia doing family research that the Nieder-Monjou 1897 census and the Nieder-Monjou 1898 village list are extant at the Engels archive.

Nieder-Monjou AHSGR Village Coordinators Michael Grau and Steven Grau

Norka, Saratov Province, Russia 2013 Report to the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR)

Prepared by:

Steve Schreiber, Norka Village Coordinator for AHSGR and Norka Webmaster steven.schreiber@gmail.com

Judy Curtis, Norka Database Coordinator

Jerry Krieger, Norka Newsletter Editor and Publisher norkanews@gmail.com

Louis Schleuger, Norka Census Records Coordinator ohashi70@gmail.com

Our primary goals are to document the history of Norka and assist those who are researching their families from this colony. In 2013, the Norka team completed a significant amount of work and this report highlights some of the key accomplishments.

Norka Outreach

A Norka Facebook page was established late in 2011. The purpose of this page is to serve as a social media forum for people researching their ancestors from Norka, Russia and to serve as a repository for genealogy, stories, history and photographs related to this German colony in Russia. Currently there are 407 people following the page from the USA, Canada, Germany, Russia and South America. This is an increase of 240 people from December of 2012.

http://www.facebook.com/norka.russia

The Center for Volga German Studies hosted the first Norka Founders’ Day on August 17th as part of its year-long celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Catherine the Great’s Manifesto inviting the Germans to Russia in 1763. The first colonists arrived in Norka on August 15, 1767. Thereafter, August 15th was celebrated in the colony each year as “Herkommstag” or Founders’ Day. The tradition was rekindled in Portland this summer and we plan to continue it on an annual basis.

Almost 150 attendees from across Canada and the United States enjoyed a day full of speakers including: Steve Schreiber (Portland, Oregon) who provided an overview of the history of Norka from its founding until the present day, Marianna Webber (Calgary, Alberta) who gave a powerful presentation about the deportation of her family to Siberia in 1941 and her personal journey to Canada, Reuben Miller (Stony Plain, Alberta) shared stories about the Norka settlement in the Stony Plain area near Edmonton, Brent Mai (Beaverton, Oregon) gave an overview of genealogy research tips and resources, Kurt Goldenstein (Eugene, Oregon) performed traditional Volga German “Dutch Hop” music, Jerry Schleining (Gresham, Oregon) spoke about the Norka settlement in Portland, Oregon, and Ruth Werner (Portland, Oregon) of the German American Society provided Kraut Kuchen (Kraut Bierock) and Riwwelkuchen making demonstration.

Following the program a social hour was held in the Bierstube of the German American Society. The event was greatly enjoyed by all.

Many new pages were added to the Norka website this year. There are currently 293 pages of information and 431 images on the site. The Volga Germans in Portland website also continues to expand and contains a great deal of information about families from Norka that settled in this area.

http://www.volgagermans.net/norka/

http://www.volgagermans.net/portland/

Norka Database Project

The Norka Database Project continues to grow as more Norka descendants contact us and request assistance in finding their ancestors. Last year approximately 35 people requested assistance.

Norka Project items are stored on a CD that is updated annually to coincide with the annual AHSGR convention. The Norka CD is not freely distributed or available to purchase; it is only available at AHSGR headquarters in Lincoln, NE and at the several AHSGR chapters (Portland, OR; Denver, CO and Fresno, CA) large enough to have computers available for researchers to use. If you are unable to travel to one of these AHSGR chapter libraries, you can request information regarding your Norka ancestral family members by contacting Judy Curtis (email: norka.judy.curtis@gmail.com) or Louis Schleuger (e-mail: ohashi70@gmail.com) for look-ups in the Norka database and in Norka census records.

The Norka Database contains over 32,600 individuals and is a merged collection of Norka Pleve surname charts, some Norka census records and “connecting link” genealogy information provided by many Norka descendants on the generations of their Norka ancestors who extend forward from where both the Norka census records and Norka Pleve surname charts end.

The Norka 2013 Convention Handouts (listed below) are available by sending an e-mail request to Judy Curtis.

• Norka Village Inventory File @ the AHSGR Library (Lincoln, NE) • Norka 2013 – Surname Charts on the AHSGR Website • Norka 2013 – Surnames with Preferred Spelling and Variations • Norka 2013 – What’s Available for Researchers • Norka 2013 – Guidelines for Researching Individuals & Families (from the Norka Website • Norka 2013 – Listing of Folders, Articles & Databases on the Norka CD

If anyone has items to add to our Norka CD, please send copies (you keep the originals) either electronically as an attachment to an email to Judy Curtis at norka.judy.curtis@gmail.com or by snail mail to Judy Curtis, P.

O. Box 995, Snowflake, AZ 85937. Remember, this is a way to share with others as well as to preserve what you have.

Norka Newsletter

The Norka Newsletter was begun by the late John and Marcella Wart in 1996.

Since 1997 the newsletter has been published by Krieger’s Root Cellar and edited by Jerry Krieger. The newsletter is published four times a year.

Subscriptions are $11 for four issues, $17 Canadian. We welcome questions, information about families and ancestors, interesting stories, and help our readers with their Norka ancestors. A sample issue will be sent on request to norkanews@gmail.com.

Norka Census Records

Preliminary work is underway to cross reference the Norka colonists listed in the 1767 Census published by Igor Pleve in his book “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3” and the “Lists of Colonists to Russia in

1766 – Reports of Ivan Kuhlberg” also published by Igor Pleve. We expect to complete this project in 2013.

In our continuing efforts of comparing Norka’s censuses information and the various family surname charts researched by Dr. Igor Pleve listed in the Norka database, additional errors were noted on Dr. Pleve’s charts and within the censuses which resulted in more corrections and linkages of family members and updated notes were made to Norka’s censuses databases.

The 1857 Census of Neu-Norka was entered into a Personal Ancestral File

(PAF) database with notes which include a cross reference to the corresponding Household in the 1857 Census of Norka. Based on the 1857 Censuses of Norka and Neu-Norka a spreadsheet was generated that cross-references those families that moved from Norka to Neu-Norka.

The cross referencing all of the families listed in Norka’s 1767-1857 Censuses is progressing slowly, but well. In this cross-referencing effort errors were noted on Dr. Pleve’s charts listed in the Norka Database and within the censuses concerning family members’ marriages, number of children and their linkages with other families. Part of the linkage effort, includes the linage of females when they married since Dr. Pleve did not include that linage on his charts. The research by many other Norka descendants is being included in this effort, which results in a much more complete family chart from 1767 to the current year. The Hinkel and Urbach databases are still work in progress.

Oberdorf 2013 Village Report

I used the material compiled by Teri Helzer and provided by researchers who have joined today. Coming soon will be available Oberdorf Census 1857 in which I am working.

I have received several inquiries in which I am working. The main idea is to help researchers and trace their ancestral line to Germany if possible.

The village of Oberdorf has a Facebook site created to help researchers and disseminate its history, then found:

• History of Oberdorf by Freddie Baker

• Timeline Oberdorf by Betty Guenther and Steve Schreiber

• Catharina II The Great Manifest

• Map of Oberdorf

• Satelital Map of Oberdorf

• Oberdorf Surnames Original Colonists

• Oberdorf Obituaries contributed by Teri Helzer

• The Ships and the Journey to the New World by Teri Helzer

• Oberdorf Origins and Destinations by Teri Helzer

• List of Church Records in the Russian Archives

• Oberdorf Surnames in the 1858 Revision List

Monographs and Stories:

• Henry and Catherine Lorenz Wedding 1906 by Walter Lorenz

• Oberdorf Victim of the Great Purge by Erv and Jerre Kaufman.

• Descendants of Volker (Voelker, Felker) by Kent Meyer

• Völker – Felker from Oberdorf in Argentina by Elena Vega Stehle

• Asmus – Schneider from Oberdorf by Patricia Gayol Windecker

• Frisorger / Schafer from Oberdorf by Marion Hergert Barth

• Heinze family from Oberdorf by Tom Heinze

• Stehle David and Schneider Katharina Elisabeth family by Mario Stehle Krenz

Family Photos Albums:

Oberdorf Photography by Freddie Baker
Felker Family by Kent Meyer
Family of David Schneider and Anna Abb by Silvia Reichel Schimpf

Ober-Monjou, Samara, Volga, 2013 Village Report for Obermunjou

Although I have a number of villages for which I work, this village has the greatest passion for me since 75% of my family came from this village. This year has been a bit slow but I probably receive e-mail at least twice a month from people who are interested in this village either from Germany, South America or here in the States.

I continue to work on my main website, www.volgagerman.net as well as maintain a number of various village websites included my Obermunjou site, www.volgagerman.net/Obermunjou.htm. New items are posted on this site as I am able to receive them from various archives or connections.

Over the past couple of years I have been in contact with several families who have sent me copies of their genealogies which have bridged some gaps. These “Familienchronik” book have included Hertel, Fischer and Krapp. I did receive a Giebler chart from a very distant family member from Germany that was very interesting. Many people still are willing to exchange photos and information whenever it is possible.

Resources available at this time include:

1. Kulberg Lists

2. First Settlers Lists

3. 1834 Census (Not complete but still working on it)

4. 1850 Census

5. 1857 Census

6. Birth Records, although not complete) for the years: 1821-1918

7. Marriage Records for the years: 1839, 1840, 1850-1858, 1860-1864, 1875, 1876-1911

8. Death Records for the years: 1850-1855, 1856-1876, 1890-1906, 1907-1918

I have been told that there are no family lists for Obermunjou.

I use Family Tree maker at this time to collect all my data from all my villages and and from Ellis County, Kansas. Currenlty I have 101,822 people listed on my database.

Kevin Rupp

Village Coordinator for Obermunjou

http://www.volgagerman.net/Obermunjou.htm

January 1, 2014

Kevin Rupp

http://www.webbitt.com/volga/pfeifer/

Paulskoye 2013 Village Report

There has been minimal activity this year. I have maintained frequent contact with Irma Merkel in Wuppertal, Germany who steers German Russians my way for assistance. Irma also keeps me updated on the activities of various GR organizations in Germany and Russia. We keep in contact too because we are distantly related. As a matter of fact, most of my work this year has been focused on various relatives of mine. For example, I was aware of “cousins” who had also migrated to the US, but their descendents had long since lost touch with my family and as it turns out their Volga German roots too. This summer in Michigan I had a reunion with some of these distant cousins and we have again established familial friendships. As another example, for one week at Easter I entertained German Russian relatives from Cologne who were excited to visit the US for the first time. I had visited them in

1996 and 2001 in Russia and 2002 in Germany. Because of their visit my spry 90 year old great aunt in Florida was able to meet her first cousin (their mothers were sisters who last laid eyes on each other in 1912 in Russia).

This year I managed to help a few people with ties to Fischer, Philippsfeld (both near Paulskoye) and even a St. Petersburg colony called Neu-Saratowka—as none of these have village coordinators. The new Eichorns’ book made the latter research possible. This book is a MUST for researchers and contains well researched links between Germany, Denmark, and the St. Petersburg colonies and many Saratov colonies. It is titled: Die Einwanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Daenemaek und deren weitere Auswanderug nach Russland in den Jahren 1759-1766, Bonn, Germany and Midland, Michigan, 2012.

Finally, but certainly not least, Mary Zell generously provided me a 1920 Family List (with ages) for all the WIEDERHOLD families in Paulskoye as researched by Dr. Mila Koretnikova and held by the Engels Archive.

Respectfully submitted,

Tim Weeder

Village Coordinator for Paulskoye

Pfeifer 2013 Village Coordinator Report

Requests for information as well as an exchange of family informaion was from Germany. The Kuhlberg list shows Aufenau for the place of origin for the Kisners. It appears that Freiberg was the name of the area from where the family left. Freiberg was a principality for whom Nikolaus Kisner worked.

A request from Russia was received to find relatives in Garden City, Kansas.

Another from Germany to find families that may have come to the US or Canada.

I continje to add information on families as time allows.

I have been able to help with requests from other villages as well..

Rosemary Larson

VC for Pfeifer, a Catholic village in the Volga area.

Pobochnoye 2013 Annual Report

Pobochnoye was a Protestant (Reformed) village founded in 1772 by 29 families from the Darmstadt, Germany area. They were led by a Pastor Fuchs

(Foxl) of the Reformed or Calvinist faith. Although immigration to Russia had been closed c. 1769, the Russian government allowed this group in; and they were given the same provisions as the larger lower Volga bound groups of 1764-67.

The settlers arrived in Saratov c. 16 December 1771 and wintered over in Saratov in the homes of residents there. In the spring, the new settlers platted out Pobochnoye and began to build buildings. By summer and fall the village was occupied, crops were planted etc. Pobochnoye was sort of a step-daughter colony to Yagodnaya Pollyana, a village some eight miles to the north, which was settled in 1767. There was a lot of social activity between the two villages, including marriages, church services, farming activities etc.

I received several research inquiries this year regarding people of Pobochnoye A few were from the Convention. Again, one big problem is to connect the existing family members back to the 1857 census. The total 1857 Pobochnoye census is not available. However, for the people who left Pobochnoye in 1855, 1856 and 1857 to go to help found Schoendorf, Schoenfeld and Schoental, that half of the census IS available. It is not available for the folks who stayed in Pobochnoye.

I was able to complete pedigree charts this year on my Wagners and Wilhelms from Pobochnoye and Schoenfeld after many years of research. I continue to correspond with a distant Wilhelm cousin in Speier, Grmany. He was born in Karaganda, Kazakstan in 1950, when it was part of the USSR.

Laurin Wilhelm

San Antonio, TX

Preuss Colony Village Coordinator’s Report 2013

I am pleased to present the first AHSGR Village Coordinator’s Report for Preuss Colony. Preuss is on the east side of the Volga in a cluster with two other Catholic Villages Hölzel and Seelmann south of Brabander and Dehler. I share the Village Coordinator position with two dedicated Volga German genealogists from Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Cristian Jungblut and his wife Eliana Prost who have volunteered to help in our common efforts to establish roots and obtain the census and church documents of our ancestors. Cristian Jungblut and Eliana Prost both have ancestry from Dehler, Preuss, and Hölzel. They have published one book on the early colony of San Miguel the Archangel entitled San Miguel Arcángel, 100 años de historia Alemana del Volga, plus El Dialecto Aleman del Volga “Das Wolgadeutsch about the Volga German Dialect. Cristian has a Volga German radio program in Bahia Blanca. Eliana and Cristian both speak fluent German and are competent genealogists.

It was a very good year for Preuss Colony research. When we ask to serve as Village Coordinator’s for Preuss we already had an edge. We had the 1767, 1798, and 1834 Village Census. In early December I received copies of the 1850 and 1857 Preuss Census translations recently translated by Professor Brent Mai. I also have the 1850 and 1857 Preuss Census in the original Russian version.

The Preuss surnames in the 1857 Village Census index have been translated and are available:

Preuss was settled on May 12, 1767 by 144 families. It was named after ther first “Vorsteher” Johannes Preuss a 29 year old miller from Nassau Camberg. The village surnames of each head of household in the first settlers list included: Preuss, Glock, Schmidt, Rückert, Schwemler, Bäcker, Hiltmann, Dulson, Kempf, Kahler, Ullmann, Wolf, Assemacher, Kunz, Jungblut, Schwarz, Hartmann, Gröder, Schwarz, Thuris, Renter, Mohr, Ullmann, Vanmispel, Naust, Patt, Matz,Wolf, Sinsler, Maibach, Gröder, Fritz, Weber, Götter, Pollet, Eberlin, Kellner, Braun, Dächel, Fuchs, Wagner, Bechter, Schmdt, Hess, Seibert, Kranz, Hess, Zerfus, Engelbert, Gröder, Nesel, Milchner, Schern, Manus, Weber, Weber, Hall, Bäcker, Geisterscheld, Bäcker, Walkenbach, Maxaner, Hecker, Krämer, Niklus, Rothler, Scherscher, Müller, Zweigatt, Arnhold, Renoirt, Schröpfer, Werner, Lugarn, Wittmann, Weinmeier, Hall, Dinst, Snipp, Bessinger, Meier, Budior, Bäker, Bäker, Fuch, Krieger, Heinrich, Resch, Stellwagen, Hartmann, Stepfer, Diel, Steinecker, Bessinger, Weber, Bäcker, Meilinger, Nau, Paul, Wacker, Jung, Ramburger, Preuss, Kelberg,Karper, Resch, Hammerick, Heinrich, Wimmer, Bender, Winkler, Dietrich, Pott, Kohlenberg, Sarter, Weiz, Schneider, Schweigert, Schmidt, Krug, Staub, Knopf, Rauch, Bengler, Fischer, Glock, Messer, Preisach, Klein, Hubert, Henkel, Sauerwald, Heiland, Dipener, Nachbar, Klamm, Steinbeck, Dinkel, and Klaudiabel. This list with additional family family information is available from EINWANDERUNG IN DAS WOLGAGEBIET, 1764-1767, volume III,by Dr. Igor Pleve PhD from Saratov available through the AHSGR book store. The 4 volume set includes the German Settlements along the Volga in alphabetical order using the German names for the villages. The AHSGR also sells English translations of each village list. A second 2 volume set entitled 1798 CENSUS OF THE GERMAN COLONIES ALONG THE VOLGA, by Professor Brent Mai is also available for researching and finding families in the 1798 Census. Each family is listed by household and village. For a novice just beginning research on their Volga German ancestry this two volume set is an essential tool. There are several superior indexes which enable a novice researcher to more readily find their roots. There is a table of movements for all villages between 1767 and 1798 which allows a researcher to trace the movements of family members. There is even an agricultural census for 1797 that allows one to establish the relative wealth of each household through their animal counts, crops sowed and crops harvested. After 1798 there was a census in 1816 that has survived in part for the male villagers that had to be accounted for in the 1834 Census. The 1834, 1850, and 1857 Census Revisions are available in English from Professor Brent Mai at Concordia University, Portland, Oregon. An additional resource also became available during 2010. Dr. Igor Pleve PhD from Saratov has translated LISTS OF COLONISTS TO RUSSIA IN 1766 “REPORTS BY IVAN KULBERG”. The Kulberg Lists name a significant number of the first settlers in the Volga Colonies on transport lists in 1766. As an example on page 81 we find Johann Preuss a Catholic miller from Trier, listed as single on Document # 903. He was traveling aboard a Lubeck Ship called “Die Jungfer Friederika” with Skipper Christian Korsholm and had been recruited by Colonist Recruiter Le Roy. He arrived from Lubeck on June 18, 1766. Noting that he arrived single and was married by the time that he reached Preuss in 1767 his marriage in Russia can be established. With Census records for 1767, 1798, 1834, 1850, and 1857 plus the Kulberg list indexed we now have the ability to establish the basic lineages for many of the families from Preuss Colony. The time period between 1857 and migration to Argentina is still problematic, but the lines of early settlers into Argentina from Preuss can often be continued as a result of people recorded in Argentina Colony Census that can also be found in the Preuss 1857 Census. For those that were left behind and shipped to Kazakhstan and Siberia in 1941 and before it will be necessary to find and communicate with Preuss descendants still living in Kazakhstan, Siberia or migrants to Germany after the break up of the USSR.

If your ancestry includes the surnames listed or you can identify Preuss as your ancestral village I would like to communicate with you.

http://www.volgagerman.net/Rohleder.htm

Jim Osborne Village Coordinator

Reinhardt Village 2013 Annual Report

I have no inquires for Reinhardt

Shaefer Village

I have no inquires for Shaefer

Brenna Stokes

Reinwald Village Report

There have been about 7 inquiries for Reinwald and I have worked with those who have contacted me. I welcomed several new members that had expressed an interest in Reinwald. Thanks to Anna Dalhaimer there is now a face book page with about 50 members who have been sharing information.

Susie Weber Hess

Rohleder (Raskaty), Samara, Volga, 2013 Village Report for Rohleder

I have not had any request for Rohleder this year. I continue to help one family here in Hays to find more infromation on their GLASSMAN family. Over the past few years we have gather anumber of birth, marriage, and death records on the family from Rohleder.

I continue to maintain the Rohleder Website: http:// www.volgagerman.net/Rohleder.htm

Resources available at this time include:

1. Kulberg lists

2. First Settlers lists

3. 1834 Census

4. 1850 Census

5. 1857 Census

6. Marriage Records for the years: 1840, 1888

7. Die Einwanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Danemark und deren weitere Auswanderung nach Russland in den Jahren 1759-1766 (The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766.

I use Family Tree maker at this time to collect all my data from all my villages and and from Ellis County, Kansas. Currenlty I have 101,822 people listed on my database.

Kevin Rupp

Village Coordinator for Rohleder

January 1, 2014, Kevin Rupp, krupp@ruraltel.net

Rohrbach Beresan district, Black Sea Report

Coordinator Jim Griess

Most of the activity this year has centered around creating a new local for AHSGR in Sutton NE which was the first German Russian settlement in ne. the colony was founded in 1873 by groups of families from worms and Rohrbach. At the convention in Ft Collins I was presented with a picture of the first pastor of the German congregational church in Sutton. the brotherhood in the US was founded in 1887 in Sutton by delegates who met in a barn. The brotherhood was a pietistic lay payer group common among Protestants which was active in Russia and was brought to the US by GR immigrants.

Rosenberg Village Coordinator report (Umet) 2013

As usual there has been comparatively little activity for the village of Rosenberg in the past year: this is not surprising since, as a daughter colony founded in 1852, it only had some 50 years of existence before residents began to emoigarte to America, and, in some cases, further east in Russia, to Kasachstan. Those that remained in the village suffered not only from the famine of 1922 but also from the terror that Stalin unleashed upon Germans living in Russia during the Second World War (many males were taken away on trumped up charges and not heard of again until posthumous pardons began to be issued in the 1960s).

The family names for which requests for information have been received, and about whom some information has been gleaned from correspondents, are as follows: Dahlinger/Heilbrun/Zeigler; Erdmann (I’m grateful to village Coordinator John Groh for this information); Fischer; Knaub; Peppler (a request for a copy of a higher resolution photo than appears on the website); Ramig; Schlundt; Stricker/Hilderman; Weitzel. The difficulty for researchers is that following the 1857 census (which, incidentally, is obtainable from Brent Mai) there is virtually no material for the village available except for some general descriptions in various reference volumes.

It is good to now receive requests from Russia and from families previously resident in Russia but now living in Germany. I also received an email from South America where numbers of Volga Germans settled. Some of the Russian/German correspondence is from members of my own extended family – the Majors (Maior) – a branch of the family who moved east in 1908/9. Some people from Rosenberg settled in Majorowka (named after my grand uncle) in Kasachstan but I have not yet had any information on other families that settled there apart from the Majors.

Richard E. McGregor

Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 9:03 AM, McGregor, Richard<richard.mcgregor@cumbria.ac.uk></richard.mcgregor@cumbria.ac.uk>

Schaffhausen 2013 Annual report

Schaffhausen (aka Michaelis, Schaffhausen, Wolkowo, Volkovo) was one of the original ” <http://www.volgagermans.net/cvgs/glossary.html> Mother Colonies” established in the lower Volga region between 1764 and 1772.

It is the northernmost village on the eastern or Wiesenseite side of the Volga river and is still inhabited, albeit by non-Germans. The original German church, the “Holy Trinity” reportedly the first stone Lutheran church built in the region in 1832, and adjacent church school buildings have been destroyed.

There are many known colonist family names include (spelling may not be accurate. Please contact for all the details):

It has been a quiet year for Schaffhausen research and I have only had contact with researchers concerning possible future travel to the Volga region.

I am somewhat surprised at the lack of enquiries regarding Schaffhausen and wonder what has happened to the descendants of this village!

While admitting that the absence of a Facebook page or alternative net forum may explain the lack of enquiries I feel that many Schaffhausen descendants may not be aware of the existence of the AHSGR.

I hope to address this situation through liaison with VCs of other northern Weisiensite villages whose extensive databases contain details of intermarriages and other movements between these villages. I also hope to explore possible contacts in German websites such as “Geschichte der Wolgadeutsche”. The latter may be a possible venue for obtaining the full 1857 Schaffhausen village census, currently incomplete, which would greatly assist in establishing the full family history of Schaffhausen.

Jim Parsonage, Schaffhausen VC, Brisbane Australia

Schwab 2013 Annual Village Coordinator report

It has been a quiet year for the Village of Schwab; I received 3 queries; I helped each inquirer as much as my information would allow.

I was able to add a small amount of data (every little bit helps!) to my Schwab database and have forwarded a GEDCOM to Lincoln.

Until very recently I was indexing obits for SOAR and found one item that I was able to forward to another VC.

Otherwise, I am “alive and well” or so I think and my e-mail address has not changed and I seriously doubt that I will ever change it; it is out there in the “big wide Internet World” and I want people to continue to find me.

Rolene Eichman Kiesling

VC Schwab

Groveland, CA (near Yosemite Natl Park and the “RimFire”)

Shcherbakovka Annual Report aka Tscherbakowka

Nov. 22, 2013

I have had only a few email contacts concerning the village of Shcherbakovka this year. A committee was established to purchase new records from the archives in Russia with the funds left by Tim Montania in 2009. He left a generous bequest to pay for information and documentation on Shcherbakovka and the neighboring village of Dreispitz (in the Lower Volga area). The committee is “shopping” and deciding what to order from what’s available. The wheels are turning slowly, but they are in motion.

Several years ago, I personally purchased all the Lutheran Church records that were available for Shcherbakovka (1809-1867). I have translated them and they are now in easy- to-use form and available for purchase.

Jan. 24, 2013, I lost my best Ger-Rus genealogy friend and fellow V.C. with the death of Rachel (Borecky) Smith of Wichita, KS who was the long-time V.C. for the Lower Volga Village of Dreispitz. She tirelessly gave so much of herself and will be greatly missed. Mark Wills assisted her for the last couple of years and will be an excellent V.C. replacement.

Janet Laubhan Flickinger

V.C. for Shcherbakovka

Schlangendorf 2013 Village Coordinator Report

I had one inquiry regarding the family Märten. I had success finding them on the forum for wolgadeutsche website under the name Maertin.

Respectly submitted,

Karen Wright, VC, Black Sea Villages.

Schoendorf 2013 Village Report

Schoendorf (Pretty Village) (now Repnoye) was a Protestant village located

70 mi.SE of Saratov. It was founded in 1855. Half of the settlers came from Yagodnoye; half of the settlers came from Pobochnoye.

There were several research inquiries this year. I was able to help people using the Schoendorf Original Settlers List (OSL), a part of the Pobochnoye 1857 census. I also used the Pobochnoye Censuses 1772, 1798 and1834.

In one case, the researcher and I were able to complete her family pedigree chart from today back to her ancestor who came from Darmstadt, Germany to help fond Pobochnoye in 1772. We connected back to the 1857 Schoendorf OSL and then back through the Pobochnoye censuses. We had been working on it for a long time.

Laurin Wilelm

San Antonio, TX

Schoenfeld 2013 Village Report

Schoenfeld (Pretty Field) (Polyanka) was a Protestant village located 70 mi.SE of Saratov. It was founded in 1856 by settlers from Pobochnoye.

There were several research inquires this year. Four were from the Convention. The big hurdle is to connect the current living family members back to the Original Settlers List, (OSL), i.e. 1857 Pobochnoye census. In one case the lady already had the pedigree information and even a family book.

But it was nice to give her the information from the censuses , i.e. the Scoenfeld OSL, the Pobochnoye censuses 1772, 1798 & 1834.

Nothing is left of Schoenfeld or Polyanka today. When the colonists were deported to Siberia in September 1941, the houses and livestock were abandoned. Gradually the houses and other buildings were torn down and used for firewood by the Russians.

Laurin Wilhellm

San Antonio, TX

Schoental 2013 Village Report

Schoental (Pretty Valley) (today Dolina) a Protestant village, was located 70 mi.ESE of Saratov. It was founded in 1855. Half of the settlers came from Yagodnoye Polyana; and half of the settlers came from Pobochnoye.

There have been several research inquiries this year. I was able to help the using the Original Settlers Census (1857) and the Pobochnoye censuses of 1834, 1798 and 1772.

One persistent problem in the research is that the researcher is not able to list his ancestors back to 1857 to get them onto the last census (1857).

Laurin Wilhelm

San Antonio, TX

Schönchen, Samara, Volga, 2013 Village Report

Web site: www.schoenchen.org

Information was shared this past year with researchers interested in the Fladung, Depperschmidt and Mertz families.

Obituaries and passenger list information was added to the Schoenchen website for Baal (Bahl), Herklotz, Fladung, Ebel, and Depperschmidt.

My summer projects this year was an attempt to locate naturalization records for Schoenchen immigrants. I had some success locating and copying records for Herklotz, Wasinger, Lattigan, Fladung, and Reichert.

Entry into the Schoenchen database continues for census and church records and from other sources collected throughout the year.

Denise Grau, Co-Village Coordinator, Schoenchen

Schwed 2013 annual report

Inquiries: Wiegel, Christ, Hoppe

I find it interesting that so many Germans from Russia that lived in the Jefferson Park area of Chicago, were from Schwed, but didn’t know how they were related to other families. Families with the same last name, lived a block away from each other, came over from Schwed at the same time, when asked, (Are we related?), the reply was “No, we are not related”. Now we are starting to find out they were, just back a couple of generations.

The 1798, 1850, 1857 census records are available for Schwed. .

Surname charts available are:

Altergott

Degraf

Gorr

Hoppe

Kuhfeld / Kufeldt

Pfeifer

Wiegel

Keith Wiegel

Schwed Village Coordinator

Seelmann Village Coordinator Report for 2013

I am proud to announce that Seelmann Colony a Catholic Colony on the “Wiesenseite” or meadow side of the Volga also finally has a village coordinator. Although I have no known direct ancestry from the village there was significant migration of families to Holzel with surnames that I was working on to spark an interest. The interest began in my research on the Trausch family from Dehler which suddenly had the migration of Johannes Trausch, one of two brothers to Seelmann before the 1834 Census. Before I volunteered to be the Seelmann Village Coordinator I was already working on many of the lineage of many of the families including Basgal, Bundang/Bondank, Dietrich, Frank, Haag/Haagen, Krämer, Maibach, Molleker, Obert, Redel, Ruppelt, Schell, Sewald, Trausch, Weiss, and Ziegemann.

In 1834 there were a total of 142 households in Seelmann Colony. A list of the surnames in 1834 are available:

If you have ancestry from Seelmann or information about the families or descendants please contact me. I am interested in making contact with descendants from Seelmann that may still be in Kazakhstan, Russia or Germany or the families that migrated to the Americas.

Jim Osborne Village Coordinator

Stahl am Tarlyk 2013 Village Report

This past year I had 2 inquiries and was able to help one person fill in their entire family tree, from Fresno CA., through Russia and into Germany, including the history of the village and how they came to Russia.

The data base continues to be a valued tool for this kind of research.

Sure could use any census from 1859 to 1900.

Paul Koehler, Village Coordinator for Stahl am Tarlyk, the village of my parents birth place.

Strassburg 2013 Village Report

Strassburg Samara Volga

Map 6, Quadrant E-8, Strassburg 50 12 N 46 43 E

Surnames for Strassburg: Balzer Bauer Blähm Blehm Breyer Briegemann Busch Clauser Deisner Dieterle Engel Ephraim Geiss Gerlach Graff Günther Heidelbach Heinze Helwer Herdt Klauser Koerbs (Kerbs) Körbs Krispins Lattner Meier Metzler Müller Opfer Rau Repp Sauerwein Schäfer Schlotthauer Schmidt Schmunk Schreiner Schuber Seifert Seigfried Stuertz Stürtz Vogel Völker Wassenmüller Weber. The source list of these Village surnames was the 1857 Census from Brent Mai received in the early part of 2010.

Strassburg was founded in 1860 along the left bank of the Torgun River as a Lutheran colony. The original resettlers were from the colonies of Galka, Shcherakovka, Kraft, Schwab, Holstein, Dobrinka, Balzar

Following the 1941 Deportations, the village was known by its Russian name of Romashki which means daisies.

The solution was to found new villages, called daughter colonies, in parts of the Lower Volga region were no villages existed. Most of these villages were on the east side of the Volga River

With all of the startup activity in establishing a source of information on the villages; I have not been able to post to a standard website.

Leland Riffel

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/RUS/RUS-SAMARA-WIESENMUELLER.html

Strassendorf 2013 Annual Report

Strassendorf (Street Village) was a Protestant village located 70 mi.SE of Saratov and founded in 1855. There was no research activity in this village this year.

Laurin P. Wilhelm

San Antonio, TX

Straub VC report

Sharon White, Straub VC

I have had inquiries about these Straub families: Bopp, Doos, Schwabenland, Steitz, Will, Winter (2).

I obtained the following Straub records from the Engels archive this year: Marriages for 1826 to 1833, 5 pages, 42 marriage records Deaths for 1826 to 1833, 5 pages, 143 death records

These were the only Straub marriage records at the archive. Mila thought there were more but they turned out to be birth records. There were women from these villages that married in Straub: Dinkel (3), Jost (4), Kukkus (4), Messer (1), Lauwe (3), and Warenburg (3). I will send the marriage information to the VC’s of these villages. Most of these marriage records have a birth date of the bride and groom, the father’s name of the groom and the maiden name of the bride.

The marriage information was more helpful than the death information. Getting this information from the archive was very expensive. Luckily my cousin, Jake Leisle, helped me translate the Russian and I didn’t have to pay even more to have an English translation done.

There are more death records at the archive for the years 1865 to 1884. There are birth records at the archive for 1794 to 1888. I would like to get more Straub records but will need financial help to pay to get more Straub records.

There are only a few maiden names on the 1850 and 1857 Straub census records. The 1834 Straub census has not been located yet. There is no 1874 Family List for Straub at the archive. Getting more Straub records from the archive will help fill in these research gaps for Straub.

I continue to collect photos, obituaries and other records for people who were from Straub.

Taurida 2013 Village Coordinators Report for (Mennonite Colony):

Most of my inquiries involve the Molotchna Colonies (60 villages), but I occasionally have inquiries for the Chortitza Colonies (20 villages).

I am working with one family to scan and translate the diaries/journals of a Klassen family, the wife who was the foster daughter of Leonhard Suderman, one of the 12 Mennonite Scouts to America before the immigration of 1874. These journals include 600 pages, and is of great interest to area Mennonite Archives – the Mennonite Library and Archives (MLA) of Bethel College, N. Newton, KS and the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies (CMBS) of Tabor College, Hillsboro, KS. A copy of this set of journals will also be shared with the AHSGR library and archives. This family also has a copy of the diary/journal of Leonhard Suderman during the months of the delegation’s travels throughout mid-west United States before immigration; a translated copy of this diary/journal has been located in MLA at Bethel College. The Leonard Suderman’s and their foster daughter’s family settled in the Whitewater, Kansas area (Harvey and Butler Counties, Kansas).

Other family names being researched by contacts this past year include Regier, Jantz, Duerksen, Unruh, Bergen, Loewen, Neufeld, Penner, Epp, and Dueck(Dyck).

Specific villages involved in the research contacts include Gnadenheim, Liebenau, Schardau in the Molotchna,

In addition to my comprehensive library for Mennonite research, I have the

1835 Census of the Molotchna Colony (also available at AHSGR library), the school censuses of many of the villages/colonies in the Molotschna, and access to many of the Mennonite family genealogies.

Karen Suderman Penner,VC for the Molochna, Taurida, Ukraine Colonies and the Chortitza, Ekaterinslav, Ukraine Colonies

Volhynia 2013 Village Coordinator Report

In 2013 there were no inquiries for Volhynia. At the Ft. Collins convention Area 8 had six people attend the meeting. One was a beginning researcher. Material in the Volhynian Heritage Hall binder was updated and I was complimented by several convention goers on the helpful information that the binder contained. The Volhynian Village File at AHSGR has now been digitized. A new publication was released by AHSGR “The “German Question” in the Black Sea Region and in Volhynia: Politics, Economics, and Everyday Life Amid the Tension Generated by Nationalism and Modernization (1956-1914)” by Dietmar Neutatz who was one of the featured speakers at the convention. Copies of his book are available in the AHSGR bookstore and at conventions. Still available is the book “Introduction to the Legends of the Germans in Volhynia and Polesys (Sagen der Deutschen in Wolhynien und Polesien)”

translation by Leona S. Janke. At the Village Coordinators convention meeting, it was suggested that villages should either have a Facebook page or publish a newsletter. That will be my project for 2014. Lublin records are presently being translated by the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe.

Mabel Kiessling

Village Coordinator for Volhynia

Warenburg VC report

Sharon White, Warenburg VC

I have had inquiries about these families this year: Andreas, Arnst, Bier, Constanz (2), Deobold, Gerlach, Gobel, Kinzel, Kisling (2), Schmall, Schutz, Simon, Stumpf (2), Trippel (2), Werner, and Yost.

I have obtained more 1874 Family Lists for these Warenburg families this year from the Engels archive: Stumpf (3 pages), Constanz (7 pages), Kinzel ( 9 pages) and Yost (2 pages).

These Family Lists continue information from the 1857 census to 1884 (sometimes some

1885 information) when the next Family List starts. There are birth dates (sometimes only a year of birth), year of marriage and death dates (sometimes just a year) and a maiden name for some of the wives. I obtained these Family Lists in previous years: Boos, Eisner, Funkner, and Schiffman. Jake Leisle has obtained the 1874 Family Lists for his Warenburg families–Bier and Leisle and sent me the information. These 10 Family Lists for Warenburg total 74 pages of records and have 131 maiden names.

My cousin, Jake Leisle, has helped me translate all of the Family Lists from the Russian–not paying for translations has saved a lot of money that can be put into getting more records.

I had 1 page of Schutz 1874 Family List information and a birth record donated by Gloria Johnson that she got from the archive.

I appreciate the financial help I have had to get the 1874 Warenburg Family Lists.

I could not pay to get all these records by myself. There are some marriage records at the archive that I would like to start getting. This would fill in a gap of maiden names for many years as there are no maiden names on the 1834 and 1850 Warenburg census records.

There were maiden names on the 1798 census and on the 1857 census.

Weimar 2013 Village Report

Weimar Samara Volga

Map 6, Quadrant E-8, Weimar 50 04 N 46 40 E

Surnames for Weimer: Bauer Bischoff Fass Flath Fox Garlack Gerlock Graf Gross Heffel Heinze Kerbs Krenz Maier Meyer Miller Moore or Mohr Neiwert Neiwirth Neuwerth Rusch Scheidt Schmidt Schneider Spindler Utz Weichhold Weimer The source list of these Village surnames was the 1857 Census from Brent Mai received in the early part of 2010.

The 2010 AHSGR Convention had an informative display on the origination of the Village of Weimar. https://www.ahsgr.org/Villages/inventory/avfi-w.htm#WEIMARS

History and description of Weimar parish, Papers proving German Heritage of Gregor Salzmann. Dated 19 November 1938

The solution was to found new villages, called daughter colonies, in parts of the Lower Volga region were no villages existed. Most of these villages were on the east side of the Volga River.

With all of the startup activity in establishing a source of information on the villages; I have not been able to post to a standard website.

Leland Riffel

Wiesenmueller 2013 VC Report

I took over as VC of the daughter colony Wiesenmueller in September 2012.

In 2013 I spent considerable time cleaning up the Wiesenmueller database.

This included updating or deleting essentially blank records inserted into the database from imported Gedcom files. A lot of time was spend updating information on Wiesenmueller people that immigrated to the US and Canada.

Church records for the Lutheran church in Wiesenmueller are located in three Russian Archives as follows: Engels (Family list: 1895, 1914), Volgograd

(Births: 1914, Marriages: 1894, 1895), Saratov (unknown).

Many people from Wiesenmueller immigrated to the United States, to Oklahoma (Harper County), Kansas (Marion, Barton, Rush and Russell counties), Colorado (Otereo, Larimer and Weld counties) and Michigan (Bay, Saginaw and surrounding counties). Others can be found in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and California. The Wiesenmueller database also includes people from the village who were displaced to Kazakhstan and Siberia. The ancestors of people immigrating from Russia are traced back as far as possible using available census documents.

During 2013 I have received five inquires requesting information. I have setup a Rootsweb mailing list for Wiesenmueller with subscriber information here:

Gary Martens

Wiesenmueller VC

Wittman (Soloturn), Samara, Volga, 2013 Village Report for Wittmann

I have no inquiries for Wittmann this year. I maintain my main site, www.volgagerman.net as well as the sites pertaining to my village, www.volgagerman.net/Wittmann.htm.

Resources available at this time include:

1. 1798 Census

2. 1834 Census (not complete)

3. 1857 Census

4. 1890 Family List

5. Birth Records for the years: 1879, 1881

6. Village Map

I also subscribe to the magazine, “Volk auf dem Weg” from Germany. At times there are many interesting articles in here about the different villages and also book articles that people have written about the villages. The latest article, “Das Schicksal. Der lange Weg nach Solothurn-Wittmann und zuruck” (“Fate. The Long Way to Solothurn-Wittmann and Back”) was translated for me by Alexander Herzog and I hope to add that to my website in the near future. I do purchase books like this, one copy for my library and one for AHSGR, that I feel might be of some help to those researching these villages.

Any new items that I receive from people or the archives are listed on the website and people are always welcome to e-mail for information about them. I want to especially thank Brent Mai who allowed me to use the statistics for my villages from his web site.

I have a copy of the book, “Die Kirchen und das Religiose Leben der Russlanddeautschen: Katholischer Teil” by Joseph Schnurr that helps me with information for my website.

Kevin Rupp

Village Coordinator for Wittmann/Solothurn, Russia www.volgagerman.net

January 1, 2014

Kevin Rupp