To Village Coordinator Reports (alphabetized by village name):
A B D E F G H J K L M N O P R S T V W Y
Alexanderdorf(s) 2016 VC Annual Report
Another quiet year regarding requests, thus time has been dedicated to research and organization. I did hear from Alfred Rieffer and appreciate his interest in the village of Alexanderhoh. I am comparing census records, surname charts and various resource materials for villager’s mobility.
There are numerous villages named Alexanderdorf or similar spelling, these villages are scattered across vast areas of Russia. Often only the name of the villages is mentioned in records, leaving the researcher wondering where to start.
Alexanderdorf records are scattered across the country, being difficult to locate. Villages were located on the Volga, the Caucasus and Black Sea area.
EWZ records are being researched; the Family History Library is within driving distance.
Family History Library. The local Intermountain chapter was invited by the FHL to present at the “Eastern European Conference” held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Presenters from the chapter were Dr. Darrell Weber (Volga) and Gwen Oryall (Bessarabia), also Bill Doos generously donated his time to speak about the Caucasus. Much appreciation to all.
The FamilySearch webinar is a useful tool for many aspects of research.
AHSGR staff and volunteers are receiving numerous well deserved praises.
The progress towards scanning and numerous other projects is commendable. I suggest members view the new web page, the village files are on-line. Check back frequently as web resources change often.
Facebook projects; Alexanderdorf(s). This is an ongoing project.
DNA: I suggest each and every German from Russia take time to complete their DNA and share the results. Hopefully Alexanderdorf data will be available soon.
Inter Library Loan: Use this resource to access materials not available at your local library. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlibrary_loan
Alexanderdorf (ss) convention binder and materials were donated to AHSGR. I plan to attend conventions and meet fellow Alexanderdorf researchers, contact welcomed.
Appreciation to other VC’s for their efforts and positive suggestions. The new VC web site will facilitate communication among the village coordinators. Thanks to Mike Meisinger for his efforts.
South America: looking for villagers in South America.
I would appreciate hearing from descendants.
Families rarely remained in one location for generations, events resulted in mobility. Alexanderdorf settlers are also recorded in the various villages. Caucasus records are extremely difficult to locate; this is one of many areas I want to explore.
Sharing is the primary objective among serious and professional researchers.
*Village Coordinator Vacancies: *Consider becoming a VC if you have a village of interest that is not presently covered. It is critical that these records be collected and preserved; the AHSGR web makes these files easily available.
Feel free to make contact with me; I look forward to expanding our knowledge and data base.
Dee Hert
Intermountain Chapter President and Membership Chair
AHSGR Life and Board Member
Alt-Doenhof 2016 VC Annual Report
I had inquiries for several families during 2016. They were Kisselmann, Baus, Maier, Detter, Jaeckel, Gomer, Keller, Boltz, Hergert, Lohrengel, and Kaiser. I was able to help with most of the inquiries and to clarify basic information from the researchers. Lee Ann Schlager was able to help with the Lohrengel request, as the family had ties to Neu-Doenhof.
I also was able to help with a couple of Balzer researchers who contacted me as DNA cousins. Those researchers were searching for information for Bender and Volz/Foltz families. My participating in DNA testing has resulted in several previously unknown DNA cousins with German-Russian ancestry. Those cousins have ancestors mainly from Doenhof or Balzer, but I have also found one going back to Huck.
Lee Ann Schlager and I continue to pursue the ongoing records project for Alt and Neu-Doenhof. The records that were received earlier have been translated and are being compiled for publication. Lee Ann Schlager asked if I would take part in proofreading death records for Neu-Doenhof, and I have completed those and sent them to Lee Ann for the next step in publication. The AHSGR board will provide copies of these records to those Doenhoffers who contributed to the records fund at a certain level.
Birth records for the years 1815-1837 and 1838-1852 for Alt-Doenhof have been received by headquarters and the next step will be translating those records for publication. The records project is ongoing and the donations have been depleted at this time with the purchase of the birth records, and more donations will be needed for the purchase of additional records.
One of the highlights of the year for the Doenhof records project was an inquiry I received from Marilyn Mackett, President of the Southern Nevada Chapter of AHSGR. Marilyn asked if I would give her more information regarding the Doenhof records project, as the So. Nevada Chapter was in the process of deactivating and wanted a project to which they would donate their remaining funds they had raised through fundraising projects. The So. Nevada chapter had several members with Doenhof ancestry and wanted to know more about our records project. I sent Marilyn a history of the project, including funds that had been raised, records that had been purchased, and records that remain in the archives that are available for purchase for Doenhof. The chapter reviewed the history of the Doenhof records project and graciously agreed to donate their remaining funds of $1704.00. We can’t thank Marilyn and the So. Nevada Chapter enough for their generosity and are grateful to receive such a substantial donation.
We are looking forward to the publication of Alt and Neu-Doenhof records in 2017 will continue to fill in the missing links for our Doenhof families.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Kaiser
Village Coordinator for Alt-Doenhof
Alt Elft 2016 VC Annual Report:
I became the VC for Alt Elft, Bessarabia in June 2016. I have received no inquiries since then, but was able to welcome one new member with interest in this colony.
As for Beresina, I’m also currently working on a project to create a database of families from Alt Elft who had left Alt Elft for North- and South America, using odessa3.org in combination with other files and database I have collected over time. I hope to get this uploaded and available in the first half of 2017.
On a side note, I just noticed that my name no longer appears as the VC for Beresina and Alt Elft. Could you take a look at it, or refer me to a person who could take care of it?
Manuel Goehring<mangoeh@gmail.com></mangoeh@gmail.com>
Anton for 2016 VC Annual Report
Received one request for Anton information this year; regarding the Stark family. I was able to determine that Georg Ludwig Stark was the immigrant ancestor. Work continues on this and other Anton families.
Anton marriage records (1834 to 1863) were ordered and received from Russia, by the village coordinators. Presently Sharon is translating these documents. It is our intention to sell these materials so we can afford to move forward with additional purchases while records are available and in reasonable condition. We do accept donations towards this project.
EWZ records are also being researched; the Family History Library is within driving distance.
The Family History Library. The local Intermountain chapter was invited by the FHL to present at the “Eastern European Conference” webinar, held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Presenters from the chapter were Dr.Darrell Weber (Volga) and Gwen Oryall (Bessarabia); also Bill Doos generously donated his time to speak about the Caucasus. Much appreciation to all.
AHSGR staff and volunteers are receiving numerous well deserved praises. The progress towards scanning and numerous other projects is commendable. I suggest members view the new web page, the village files are on-line. Check back frequently as the web resources change often.
Facebook projects will be Anton and the Alexanderdorf(ss)
Inter Library Loan: Use this resource to access materials not available in your local library.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/interlibrary-loan.
Convention binder and materials donated to AHSGR, I plan to attend conventions and meet fellow Anton researchers. Contact is welcomed.
Appreciation to other VC’s for their efforts and positive suggestions. The new VC web site will facilitate communication among the village coordinators. Thanks to Mike Meisinger for his efforts.
I am looking for villagers who relocated to South America.
Individuals of interest among the Anton villagers, I would appreciate hearing from descendants.
· Hardt, Johann b. 1738 with Frau Eva Catharina.
· Stork, Johannes b. 1744, with Frau Catharina
· Stork, Georg Ludwig, b. 1741 with Frau Anna Margaretha
· Stork, Johannes b. 1745
Thanks for the support
Dee Hert
Intermountain Chapter, Membership Chair
AHSGR Life and Board Member
Sharon White
Balzer (Golo-Karamysh) 2016 VC Annual Report
This has been a very active year for Balzer research.
Several new Balzer researchers have joined AHSGR and I have contacted them. Unfortunately, we also lost contact with some of the long-time members.
We also issued a news-letter this year after a hiatus of 3 years.
At the beginning of the year Maggie Hein, VC for Frank and Kolb, shared a new website with me that is maintained in Russia (?). The site names countless Germans from the Gelnhausen region of Isenburg who were listed on transport lists composed by Johann Facius. Apparently, the original documents are maintained in Gelhausen. I determined that no less than 30 original Balzer settler families are listed in these transport lists. Maggie also encouraged me to sign up for the Archion.de site which provides numerous church records previously not available through the LDS family history library system. Using the two websites in tandem, I was able to positively identify the baptism and marriage records for all 30 families composed of no less than 87 individuals. In twenty years of researching German origins for Balzer, I have never found this many origins within such a short time span. I now have identified the German origin of about 70 percent of the Balzer original settlers. Fellow Balzer researcher Herb Femling in Portland, OR did more than his share of identifying these settlers for which I am very grateful.
An additional four first settler families were identified through the LDS family history system and on Ancestry.com
I attended the convention in July and gave a presentation on Huguenot families who where part of the original Volga settlers. This included two Balzer families (Barthuly and Borell)
Throughout the year, I was able to help a few Balzer researchers in the United States and Germany and was in continual contact with a Balzer descendant in Samara, Russia who has been a great source of information.
I finally began ordering records from the Engels archives at the urging of Maggie Hein and Brent Mai. I placed an order in November and received the copies this week. What a gold mine! 466 pages from the 1834-1845 Communion books and another 120 pages from the 1897 census and 1891-1905 Family book. At last, I found primary records for my grandfather and his family. I plan to continue to order Balzer records next year. These are very expensive, but there is so much information in these records. The only negative part of this effort was the general lack of support by fellow Balzer members. I contacted 80 Balzer members through the newsletter and email, asking them to help contribute funds. To date, only 5 members have chipped in. This was not enough to order the first lot. Recognizing the importance of these records and the possible limited time that these documents may be available, I will continue to order. I have determined to leave my retirement next year to earn enough money to be able to order as much as possible. Because Balzer was a large village, the records are extensive and will cost well over $15,000 to obtain copies of all of the records that I wish to have.
Research will continue on Ancestry.com and through the records of the LDS Family History system. I already have some clues to follow. A newsletter is planned for early 2017.
Happy New year to All!
Wayne H. Bonner VC Co-director for Balzer
15619 Ogram Avenue
Gardena, CA 90249-4445
Bauer 2016 VC Annual Report
During 2016, Bauer Village added 2 new members whose ancestral family surnames were Hock, Earhart, and Brug. I had two enquiries for additional information related to the Rahnert and Brug families. Of particular interest, is that one of our new members recently travelled to Kazakhstan and has researched a village in the Karlag region named Karamyshevka. This is the same Russian name given to Bauer village which is derived from stream/creek that runs alongside Bauer. Coincidentally, this village in Karlag was established around 1906 and ossibly by Russian-Germans from Bauer. We will continue to support and assist in researching this potential connection to the village. I am also planning to try and obtain additional information from the Engel’s Archive from the last census (1878) through 1915 which seems to be the biggest barrier in establishing connections with the previous Bauer generations.
Respectfully Submitted,
Michael A. Buck
VC for Bauer
E-mail: mike1buck@hotmail.com
Beideck 2016 VC Annual Report
Not much has happened this year. A few new people have asked questions which have been answered..No new data bases or new records have been added. The plans for 2017 are to try and answer any new questions. We are still missing a lot of information after the 1857 census. We know that some left for NeuBeideck.
VC chair for Beideck is John Lauck
email.. jdlauck23@gmail.com
Beresina 2016 VC Annual Report:
I became the VC for Beresina, Bessarabia in June 2016.
I have received no inquiries since then.
I’m currently working on a project to create a database of families from Beresina who had left Beresina for North- and South America, using odessa3.org in combination with other files and database I have collected over time.
I hope to get this uploaded and availabe in the first half of 2017.
Manuel Goehring
<mangoeh@gmail.com></mangoeh@gmail.com>
Bergdorf 2016 VC Annual Report
Over the past year, I’ve been able to add to the villages of Bergdorf and Marienberg. I ended up combining them, because as far as families are concerned, there is a very thin line between the two, even though there is some distance between them.
Diane sent me two new members. One of them, has family in all three of my villages, and I’ve added some of her ancestors to them.
I have received no requests for information, except from a person who got the Marienberg in the Black Sea region confused with the Marienberg in the Volga region, and I redirected him. As it turned out, there’s a good possibility he’s related to me through my mother’s family (my father is all Black Sea, and my mother is directly from Germany).
That’s about all there is this year.
*Sylvia M. Hertel*
*Village Coordinator*
*Bergdorf and Marienberg by the Black Sea*
Boaro 2016 VC Annual Report
The following annual report is submitted for Boaro/Boisroux, one of three villages for which I am Village Coordinator.
Boaro, which was founded on June 7, 1767, was one of the colonies of private director Baron Caneau de Beauregard. It was located on the Wiesenseite (east side of the Volga) northeast of Saratov along the Little Karaman River. Boaro was one of the colonies that temporarily housed colonists destined for other colonies pending completion of facilities in the other colonies. The First Settlers List for Boaro lists 97 families in Boaro itself and an additional 81 families that were scheduled to be resettled in other colonies. Boaro also received colonists from Cäsarsfeld, which was located adjacent to Boaro, following the abandonment or destruction of Cäsarsfeld.
For Boaro, I have the 1767 First Settlers List, which is published in Volume 1 of Dr. Pleve’s book “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767,” and the complete 1798 Census, 1850 Census, and 1857 Census. In addition, the 1834 Census, which has been obtained by the Center for Volga German Studies, is in the process of being transcribed/translated and should be available later this year. The following church records are available for Boaro:
Engels Archive — baptisms 1849-65.
Saratov Archive — baptisms 1878-1915, 1919-20; marriages 1834-37, 1839-1915; deaths 1862-77, 1895-1912, 1919-20.
In addition, village administration records are available from 1836-1916 and there are family lists for 1883 and 1850. Church records from Neu-Boaro, a daughter colony of Boaro, consist of the following: baptisms 1896-1921; marriages 1870-1910; deaths 1919-20.
In 2016, I had one inquiry relating to Boaro–from someone researching the Halle family. That contact and research is still ongoing, as I try to sort out whether certain early records are for Halle or Hoppe (another Boaro family name).
In recent years, I have put substantial effort into locating descendants from the various Schmidt families in Boaro (there were 8 different ones in the Boaro FSL) to see if I could find some related to my Schmidt family, which moved from Boaro to Stahl am Karaman in the 1820s. I finally received a contact from a Schmidt family in Germany that came from Neu-Boaro and earlier from Boaro. By comparing family and archival records, we determined that their ancestor Carl Ludwig Schmidt (b. ca. 1807 in Boaro) and my great-great-great grandfather Johann Adam Schmidt (b. ca. 1803 in Boaro) were brothers. A Y-DNA test through Family Tree DNA confirmed a genetic connection between our two lines, presumably dating back to our common ancestor–Johann Christoph Schmidt, who was born in Gohrau, Anhalt-Dessau, in 1758 and who settled in Boaro as an 8-year-old orphan (both his parents died on the way to the Volga). To establish a connection between these two branches of my Schmidt family, which have been separated for almost 200 years, is one of the most satisfying accomplishments of my research.
David F. Schmidt
Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Email: schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com
Boaro 2016 VC Annual Report
See the village of Cäsarsfeld for more details.
David F. Schmidt
Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Boisroux 2016 VC Annual Report
The following annual report is submitted for Boaro/Boisroux, one of three villages for which I am Village Coordinator.
Boaro, which was founded on June 7, 1767, was one of the colonies of private director Baron Caneau de Beauregard. It was located on the Wiesenseite (east side of the Volga) northeast of Saratov along the Little Karaman River. Boaro was one of the colonies that temporarily housed colonists destined for other colonies pending completion of facilities in the other colonies. The First Settlers List for Boaro lists 97 families in Boaro itself and an additional 81 families that were scheduled to be resettled in other colonies. Boaro also received colonists from Cäsarsfeld, which was located adjacent to Boaro, following the abandonment or destruction of Cäsarsfeld.
For Boaro, I have the 1767 First Settlers List, which is published in Volume 1 of Dr. Pleve’s book “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767,” and the complete 1798 Census, 1850 Census, and 1857 Census. In addition, the 1834 Census, which has been obtained by the Center for Volga German Studies, is in the process of being transcribed/translated and should be available later this year. The following church records are available for Boaro:
Engels Archive — baptisms 1849-65.
Saratov Archive — baptisms 1878-1915, 1919-20; marriages 1834-37, 1839-1915; deaths 1862-77, 1895-1912, 1919-20.
In addition, village administration records are available from 1836-1916 and there are family lists for 1883 and 1850. Church records from Neu-Boaro, a daughter colony of Boaro, consist of the following: baptisms 1896-1921; marriages 1870-1910; deaths 1919-20.
In 2016, I had one inquiry relating to Boaro–from someone researching the Halle family. That contact and research is still ongoing, as I try to sort out whether certain early records are for Halle or Hoppe (another Boaro family name).
In recent years, I have put substantial effort into locating descendants from the various Schmidt families in Boaro (there were 8 different ones in the Boaro FSL) to see if I could find some related to my Schmidt family, which moved from Boaro to Stahl am Karaman in the 1820s. I finally received a contact from a Schmidt family in Germany that came from Neu-Boaro and earlier from Boaro. By comparing family and archival records, we determined that their ancestor Carl Ludwig Schmidt (b. ca. 1807 in Boaro) and my great-great-great grandfather Johann Adam Schmidt (b. ca. 1803 in Boaro) were brothers. A Y-DNA test through Family Tree DNA confirmed a genetic connection between our two lines, presumably dating back to our common ancestor–Johann Christoph Schmidt, who was born in Gohrau, Anhalt-Dessau, in 1758 and who settled in Boaro as an 8-year-old orphan (both his parents died on the way to the Volga). To establish a connection between these two branches of my Schmidt family, which have been separated for almost 200 years, is one of the most satisfying accomplishments of my research.
David F. Schmidt
Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Email: schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com
Cäsarsfeld, 2016 VC Annual Report
Cäsarsfeld, which was founded on August 3, 1767, was one of the colonies of private director Baron Caneau de Beauregard. It was located on the Wiesenseite (east side of the Volga) northeast of Saratov along the Little Karaman River. According to different sources, Cäsarsfeld was destroyed by the Kirghiz in 1774. However, information given by Dr. Igor R. Pleve indicates that Cäsarsfeld was abandoned in the 1780s because of unsuitable soil conditions. Following Cäsarsfeld’s abandonment, its colonists were resettled in other nearby colonies, including Boaro and Katharinenstadt.
Given the early abandonment of Cäsarsfeld, the main records pertaining to that colony are the 1767 First Settlers List, which is published in Volume 1 of Dr. Pleve’s book “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767.” In addition, the 1798 Census (5th Revision) for various nearby colonies (e.g., Boaro and Katharinenstadt) contains notations about colonists who were resettled following the abandonment of Cäsarsfeld.
In 2016, I had one inquiry relating to Cäsarsfeld–from a person in Germany that is a descendant of Peter Winschu/Windschu, who originally settled in Cäsarsfeld and was later resettled in Katharinenstadt. Over the years, the only Cäsarsfeld families that I have come across are descendants of Christoph Schmidt (my ancestor) and descendants of Peter Winschu/Windschu.
To better understand the exact reason for Cäsarsfeld’s demise and the resettlement of its colonists, I would like to locate early records dealing with that subject. One 1812 record listed in Dr. Pleve’s inventory of documents from the Guardianship Chancery for Foreigner Settlers seems especially promising: “Case of the demarcation of land allotments assigned to Cäsarsfeld to Boaro and Katharinenstadt Colonies relating to the relocation of Cäsarsfeld colonists in those colonies.” However, the information I have obtained indicates that those records have either been destroyed or have been damaged to the point that they are no longer accessible. Other records that would be valuable for Cäsarsfeld research are pre-1800 church records from the period when Cäsarsfeld was part of the Katharinenstadt parish. Unfortunately, no such church records have yet come to light.
David F. Schmidt
Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Email: schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com
Dietel 2016 VC Annual Report
Surname requests I worked with this year were David, Jarger, Michel, Miller/Muller, Pitsch, Reichert, Schmidt, and Yeager.
Betty Carvalho (in California) donated her family collection of Bangert and Ring obituaries and family charts. Once I have entered them into the Dietel database they will be forwarded to AHSGR.
I continue to enter the birth records that Brent Mai received and that Michael Frank translated. The marriages (1836-1904) and deaths (1870-1892, 1904, 1911-1916) are done.
I was unable to attend the Concord convention but plan to make it to Milwaukie in 2017.
The Dietel Facebook page now has 185 members and growing!
Karen Bouton
Co-VC Dietel
Chortitza, Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine Colonies 2016 VC Annual Report
I have had no inquiries regarding the 20 Chortitza, Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine Colonies this past year. All inquiries this past year were for the Molotschna, Taurida, Ukraine Colonies.
Karen Suderman Penner, VC for Chortitza, Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine Colonies
The Family Lists for Neu Tarlyk, 1920, Dinkel and Kukkus Village, 1920 have been purchased and are being translated. This info will be available later this spring.
Numerous Birth, Marriage, Death records for Laub, Straub, Warenburg and Dinkel are being translated and will be available through AHSGR.org
Warenburg and Lauwe Family lists were translated and available after the
2016 AHSGR convention.
Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Dinkel 2016 VC Annual Report:
I believe I had a grand total of three requests this year. I was able to supply what info I had to them. I did a very small amount of translations of Dinkel 34 and 37 birth records that Dodie acquired. Sharon White has again helped me with the Dinkel, Straub, Warenburg connections.
Leroy Nikolaisen
Dreispitz 2016 VC Annual Report
This year I have had a few more inquires compared to previous years.
I was able to help those who have contacted me and were looking for ancestors with the following surnames of Bay, Beisel, Herbel, Sokolofsky & Galliart I also recorded a number of new families in the village database.
Anyone with ancestors from the village of Dreispitz is encouraged to share your family information with us.
Census records that are currently available for the village:
1798 – available from AHSGR
1834 – available from Ed Hoak (AHSGR Member)
1850 – available from Ed Hoak (AHSGR Member)
1858 – available from Ed Hoak (AHSGR Member)
I attended the AHSGR Convention in Concord, California which was a good time had by all.
While there I also was able to renew some friendships and learn about new resources that are available.
Additionally, I viewed a newly enhanced DVD which depicts the lives of the people within the village of Norka, Russia in 1928 as filmed by Henry Walker (Wacker) of Portland, OR.
I encourage anyone that has not seen this video to do so.
I’m still hopeful that we will be able to obtain other village records from the archives in Russia with the bequeath by Timothy Montania.
Mark Wills
Dreispitz Village Coordinator
Mark.B.Wills@jci.com<mailto:mark.b.wills@jci.com<></mailto:mark.b.wills@jci.com<>>
There have been a few inquiries for Enders in 2016. Facebook remains the most active source. I don’t post often, but I monitor the page and respond quickly to requests.
There is no new research to report, however, there are photocopies of scattered birth records in the Enders’ village file donated by Patricia Woolf some years ago, with a translation 1852-1864.
I had the pleasure of attending the 2016 convention in Concord, CA, and I look forward to the Milwaukee convention in August 2017.
Beth Mueller Davenport
Enders Village Coordinator
I just finished doing research for a gal. I spent at least 11 hours going through all my records and censuses for the name Justus. I sent her about 50 names with birth days and genealogy charts. I get a few requests each year. It is too bad the organization does not get some monetary value for our work. I wish everyone would use the family search database to record their names. I am sure all of us have names that others are looking for or are missing links to someone’s ancestry. I do have a history of the Heinrich family from Fischer that I would be glad to send to anyone via email. Again, why does not our organization have a place on their website to store these histories? Also, I am in need of the whole 1834 census of Fischer. Are there any organization efforts to purchase censuses from Saratov? I am will to pay a lot to get this census. If anyone knows of a way for me to get this census, please email me. I am tired of referring members to researchers to get a few names from this census for a bunch of money.
Brad Hertz
Frank 2016 VC Annual Report
Prepared by Maggie Hein, January 8, 2017.
In memory of Katherina Bauer Hoff, 1928-2016
American visitors to the Volga area were frequently taken to the village of Frank by their tour guides, even if they did not have Frank ancestors. They went to visit Katherina “Katy” Bauer Hoff, a survivor of the 1941 deportation, and one of the few remaining elderly Germans living in the Frank Canton villages, who still remembered and told the story of our people. Katy was born in 1928, so she was old enough to remember clearly everything that happened during the deportation and its aftermath. She always welcomed visitors to her home, and was willing to spend hours telling her guests about her life and the lives of her fellow Volga Germans. Tanja Schell, Barry Heimbigner, and I wrote a remembrance of her life, accompanied by some photos that Tanja and Barry had taken, which we posted on the Frank-Kolb Facebook page. Our celebration of Katy’s life has now been viewed by more than 12,000 people. If you are on Facebook, you can view it here:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10153921133925350
Queries:
We received nearly 80 inquiries this year, slightly less than last year. The largest source for new inquiries continues to be Facebook, followed by DNA testing. We receive inquiries from a variety of other sources – referrals from other people we have helped, people who find our contact info posted on the AHSGR web site, our own web sites, etc. I have mentioned in
previous reports that I generally do not get responses when I contact new AHSGR members. I kept careful track this year in order to determine what the response rate actually was. I received e-mails from Diane notifying me of a 31 new AHSGR members who stated that they had Frank village ancestry. Of these, a few were people that I had already had contact with, or were cousins of other VCs who presumably already had their family data. I e-mailed the remaining 28 people. Of these, only 8 responded to me, 2 of those people actually had no connection to Frank, and 2 said they would get back to me and never did. So, the end result was that I only sent genealogy reports to 4 people referred from the AHSGR office.
When someone requests help, we are almost always able to provide them with a report on their ancestors that connects most of their lines back to the initial settlers of the village, and in many cases several generations back in Germany. I produce a standard Ahnentafel Chart, with source footnotes for the data on the report so that the requestor can see exactly what our sources are. Sometimes I receive follow up questions about specific items on the report, but typically the Ahnentafel provides exactly what the requestor was looking for.
Facebook:
Facebook continues to be my primary method for finding new Frank and Kolb descendants. The membership in our Facebook page increases steadily each year. We had around 850 members at the end of last year, and we have over 1,080 right now. Anyone, whether they are a member of the page or not, is welcome to view, like or comment on the posts, and I frequently see likes, comments, and shares from people who are not members of the page. Because of this open sharing of information, the reach for some posts is occasionally double or triple the number of members of the page. I have enough material (photos of Russian villages, photos of German Origin locations, new research finds, articles and videos about Germans from Russia, articles about genealogy generally) that I normally post something new every other day. There are a multitude of Genealogy-related groups on Facebook, and I have found some that have been very helpful in providing new ideas and sources for research. It does take some work to moderate a Page or Group on Facebook. You have to pay attention to posts, messages, and comments, and you have to post information that people find interesting in order to keep the group engaged and on topic. If you don’t have a Facebook Page or Group for your village yet, I think that you would find it to be a worthwhile project. There are a number of VCs that have either Facebook
Pages or Groups, and you can review those to see if it is something that would be useful to you.
DNA Testing:
I have found DNA testing to be an invaluable supplement to my traditional genealogy research. I did my first DNA test 10 years ago under the old National Geographic Genographic project. Direct-to-Consumer DNA testing for genealogy has come a long way since then. I have done testing at all three of the major testing companies (FTDNA, 23&Me, AncestryDNA) and
Geno2.0. Each of the three major companies has its strengths and weaknesses, and which one you choose is highly dependent on what your goals are. I personally have found it incredibly helpful on my mom’s side, where we had a lack of solid facts on some lines. On my father’s side (my Volga German side), I have used it primarily as a way to locate Frank and Kolb descendants so that I can offer them help with their research. There is a steep learning curve in understanding how to use DNA results and all of the associated tools and web sites, but it is well worth it in my opinion.
One of the interesting side effects of doing DNA testing is that you will eventually be contacted by someone who was adopted, or was conceived via sperm or egg donation. These cases can be very challenging, both from a research standpoint and from an emotional standpoint. If it is a close match (1st cousin or closer) you can quickly figure out who the birth parents are, but then you have the emotional difficulty of dealing with a family secret and all of the associated privacy issues. If it is a more distant match, you have the challenge of trying to help a person who has only a distant connection to you. I have helped several adoptees and donor-conceived individuals this year, and have enjoyed helping all of them connect with their birth families.
Frank Church Records:
We have an almost complete collection of church records from 1839 through the early 1900s. We have been unable to locate any earlier church records. There is an unfortunate gap in the birth records from about 1887-1896, which occasionally causes problems in making definite connections, but in many cases people can locate records here in the U.S. such as obituaries and death certificates that allow us to identify the parents of individuals born in that gap. The church records are in German until 1891, and then switch to Russian in 1892. The German records have all been translated. Doris continues to enter the translated church records into our database, and is getting close to the end of the translated records. I regularly interrupt this project by bombarding her with new ancestors that I have found in German church records, and family information provided by newly found cousins. We frequently find individuals from other villages getting married in Frank, and we have been sharing that information with other Village Coordinators. I am now attempting to translate the Russian-language marriages and learning how to read Russian names and dates in the process.
Germany trip:
I have visited Germany many times over the last 30 years. I made a trip in 2006 that was entirely focused on visiting origin locations for my ancestors from the village of Frank. We have documented so many more origin locations over the last decade, not just for Frank, but for Kolb and other Volga villages, that I thought it was time for another trip. My work schedule does not allow me much flexibility, but I was able to get away for a week in early June. Since I only had a week, there was a lot of driving and not much time for absorbing the local sites. I rented a car in Frankfurt and drove to Kusel, in Rhineland-Palatinate. I have ancestors on my mother’s (Catholic) side that came from the small towns around Kusel and Sankt Wendel (in Saarland). From there, I travelled to the area formerly known as Hanauerland. This is an area in present-day Baden, just east of the city of Kehl on the Rhine River. A dozen families that settled in
Dietel (some descendants later moving to Frank) came from this area. I then drove to the Odenwald region. Numerous families that settled in Frank, Walter, Yagodnaya Polyana, and many other villages came from this area. From there, I traveled to Büdingen, where Tanja Schell joined me. We drove around the area between Büdingen and Fulda, visiting numerous villages that were origin locations for people who went to Huck, Messer, Kolb, Norka, and Frank. I have posted many photos from this trip and previous trips on Facebook, along with summaries of which Volga settlers came from which German village.
Our fellow researchers in Germany:
While I was in the Odenwald area, I met with a German researcher named Andreas Uhrig. Andreas is among many historians and genealogists in Germany who have an interest in the Germans who immigrated to Russia.
Reichelsheim and nearby Fränkisch-Crumbach were the origin locations for many Volga settlers. These immigrants to Russia have been identified in several publications such as the Mai/Marquart Origins and Destinations book and Ella Gieg’s numerous articles and books. Andreas was working on a presentation about the people who left this area to go to Russia, in
commemoration of the 250th anniversary of their departure. He had identified a number of families who had left his area to travel to Russia, and was interested in tracing a few of those families first to Russia, and then later to the U.S. or Canada. I thought the Walter family of Walter village would be an interesting choice because of the large amount of detailed information available about that family and the fact that the Russian village was named after them. I put together a package of information including the Walter Surname Chart, the Walter CD, and examples of descendants of that family that had immigrated to the U.S. There was a
few other families from other villages that we also researched. I want to thank the Walter and Yagodnaya Polyana village coordinators for helping with this project.
German origins:
We have made considerable progress this year on confirming origin locations (and researching as many generations back as possible in the German church records) for the settlers in both Frank and Kolb. A major reason for the progress this year has been the Archion Church Book Portal web site. We have a considerable number of immigrants to both Frank and Kolb who originated in the area of Hesse that is covered by the Landeskirchliches Archiv Kassel (Archive of the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck in Kassel). The records for our origin locations had not previously been available outside of Germany. They had not been filmed by Family Search, and professional researchers that we hired were able to extract the data, but not allowed to make photocopies of the pages. I have now been able to download images of the church book entries to support previous findings and to extend some lines that had not yet been researched. I have also been able to locate many new origin locations, which includes a number of localities in Rhineland-Palatinate and in Baden-Württemberg. We have some settlers that are believed to have come from Saxony, but at this point there is a lack of church records available for the locations in Saxony that I am interested in. Family Search continues to add to its indexes of German church books, and Ancestry has made several collections of German church books available to their subscribers. There is some overlap between what is on Ancestry and what is on Family Search, and since Family Search is free, that is probably the best place to start.
I focused especially on Kolb settlers this year. I frequently come across families from other villages when I am researching Frank and Kolb people. Because of the difficulty and challenges inherent in documenting Volga German Origin locations, I always share the information that I find with the appropriate village coordinator. Over the last few years, I have come across families that settled in Huck, Messer, Norka, Moor, Warenburg, and Dobrinka and have shared that information with those Village Coordinators.
We have distributed the German Origin information in various formats over the years. What we have confirmed for Frank and Kolb origins has been shared with both AHSGR and CVGS for posting on the German Origins sections of both web sites. Doris includes a German Origins section in the handout that she prepares for each AHSGR convention, and annual versions of this
handout are available in the Frank Village File at AHSGR Headquarters. I have a spreadsheet that I created to track what we know about each First Settler family. And of course, I include the German ancestral information in the genealogy reports that I produce for people. I decided to reorganize my data this year and present the information in a different way. First, I created a map in Google Maps that has a pin for each confirmed Frank and Kolb origin location. You can view that map here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1smOKsmkETiWQscJ20DtxY__A4wA
<https://drive.google.com/open?id=1smOKsmkETiWQscJ20DtxY__A4wA&usp=sharing>
&usp=sharing
I have also written out brief narratives providing basic genealogical information about each of the Frank and Kolb First Settler families for which we have a confirmed origin location. You can view a .pdf file of that information here:
Frank
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lt7beqz8sy00iyy/Frank_German_Origins.pdf?dl=0
Kolb
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jmzzg8km0w26tzr/Kolb_origins_summary.pdf?dl=0
Brunnental communion registers:
Earlier this year, the Center for Volga German Studies was able to obtain a portion of the 1870-1884 Communion register for Brunnental. The Russian Archive was willing to copy only a portion of it because they feel that the first half of the book is too fragile to copy. Communion Registers include a considerable amount of data that is useful for genealogy. They list the name of the head of household, his wife, when and where each was born, and when they married. For children that are members of the household, they list names, birth dates, birth locations, marriage dates, and spouse names. Grandchildren’s birth dates and locations are also listed. Daughters are listed until they marry and move to their husband’s household, and sometimes there is a note about exactly which household they moved to. The multi-generational nature of the data makes it especially valuable for genealogy research, and the detail (exact birth dates and birth locations) provides more data than a census does. Brunnental is a daughter colony, populated with settlers predominantly from Walter, Frank, Kolb, Norka, Dietel and Huck, along with settlers from a number of other villages. When you include the birthplaces of the wives and children, the number of villages mentioned is in the dozens. Because so many of the Brunnental colonists came from Frank and Kolb, I volunteered to translate the Registers. I am entirely self-taught in reading Kurrentschrift, so it can be slow work, but it is excellent practice in reading handwritten German. As I complete each family group, I pass the translations along to the Brunnental VC, and to the VC of the origin colony, so that everyone can share in and benefit from the information. During 2016, translated pages have been sent to the VCs of Walter, Norka, Huck, Kutter, Dietel, Messer, Moor, Warenburg and Schilling.
Frank and Kolb census records:
In 2011, we obtained images of the 1857 Kolb census. Initially, our reason for needing images of the original census was to match up the household numbers in the 1857 census with the household numbers in the Russian Military Draft Lists. We were unable to use the AHSGR-published Kolb Census book (“Kolb: A German Colony on the Volga”) for this purpose because the AHGSR book does not provide the household numbers. As we started to work our way through the translation, we discovered that there were problems with the information in the AHSGR book. The maiden names of the women, which do appear in the original records, were completely omitted. In addition to the missing maiden names, some individuals were missing from the AHSGR book. In late 2011, I e-mailed several members of the AHSGR Board, notifying them of what we had learned about the Kolb census, requesting copies of the materials that were used to create the Kolb book, and offering to personally pay for a new translation of the materials. I followed up with another round of e-mails to AHSGR Board members in 2012. In my 2012 VC report, I mentioned the problems with the Kolb census, and I stated that the translation of the Frank church records had also alerted us to problems with the published Frank census records (“Frank: A German Colony on the Volga”). I stated that I didn’t know if the errors originated with the extraction of the data from the Russian records (apparently by Pleve), with the translation of the records, or with the formatting of the books for publication and I warned that anyone acquiring either the Frank or Kolb census books should be aware that they are incomplete and contain errors. In 2013 we obtained from the Russian Archives a list of heads-of-households in the 1834 and 1857 Frank censuses, and sample pages for two families. This confirmed that the women’s maiden names were reported on the original 1857 Frank Census (and were omitted from the AHSGR book) and that families were missing from the AHSGR book. I described the issues with the Frank census in my 2013 VC report. After these attempts to engage AHSGR in a discussion about re-translating and correcting the published materials, Doris and I decided to acquire the records ourselves in order to do our own new translations. Via a combination of acquisitions by the Center for Volga German Studies and personal acquisitions by Doris and myself, we now have the 1834 and 1857 Kolb censuses, and the 1834, 1850, and 1857 Frank censuses. As of this writing, both the 1834 and 1857 Kolb censuses and the
1850 Frank census has been translated. The 1834 and 1857 Frank census are in the process of being translated.
AHSGR Convention:
Doris and I were both able to attend the convention this year. I gave a presentation on the types of records that are available in the Russian archives for Volga German genealogy research. As I have for the last several years, I moderated the VC meeting and the Area 1 Village meeting.
When we were not attending presentations, we camped out at a table in the library, assisting researchers as much as we could with both general Volga German genealogy questions, and questions that were specific to Frank or Kolb. We had a relatively low turnout of Frank and Kolb attendees this year, but we still had plenty of people who wanted to ask us questions. I recently heard from another village coordinator that one of her cousins wanted to talk to us but gave up because of the long line. I enjoyed seeing some of our west coast cousins who normally do not attend conventions. I will not be attending the 2017 convention.
Maggie Hein
Village of Frank
Visit us on Facebook –
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Frank-Kolb-Russia-Database/336156650349
Friedenberg 2016 VC Annual Report
I have had no one contact me regarding the village of Friedenberg this past year.
Maybe 2017 will be better! Merry Christmas everyone!
Brenda Silvey
Village Coordinator for Friedenberg, Russia, AHSGR
Gnadenfeld 2016 VC Annual 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.
In the past year I have only had two requests for information on Gnadenfeld families.
Due to poor vision, I am unable to continue as village coordinator for Gnadenfeld.
Irma A. Waggoner, V.C.
Galka 2016 VC Annual 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. These records have been purchased and access to extracted information from the records is available by making a contribution towards the purchase of $50 for one surname. Approximately 95% of the birth records have been translated. The records not translated are those after 1893 that are in Russian. No lists of Galka residents drafted into the Russian Army have been found.
There is a history of the village of Galka here:
http://www.galkagr.org/Galka_book/Galka_German_Settlement_on_the_Volga.pdf
The report was written in 1912 by Max Praetorius from Riga, Latvia, as his dissertation for his Ph.D. It includes (1) general information on settlements in the Volga and land allotments to settlers, (2) information on the “Trustee Office for Foreigners”, which was the Russian government organization that controlled villages in the Volga region, (3) history of the village of Galka, and more. The report is 84 pages in length.
During 2016, I had 10 emails with people concerning people from Galka, and their descendants. Those emails came from the US, Germany and Russia. 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.
Galka is part of the Lower Volga Village Project:
http://www.lowervolga.org/ I am in the process of creating a database including all villages in that project. One of the purposes of that database is to identify people moving between villages.
Gary Martens
VC for Galka
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Göbel 2016 VC Annual Report
Map 6, coordinates B7 – Goebel AKA 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 a working file for Goebel village of names, births and marriages known regarding the village of Goebel. I have the AHSGR Village File information, and also 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 was able to attend the 2016 AHSGR Convention in Concord, California; my first time attending a convention and I was able to meet many of my fellow VCs that I had only previously corresponded with via email.
I received no direct requests in 2016.
Ben Markel
Goebel Village Coordinator
Graf 2016 VC Annual Report
I continue to receive a number of emails from people looking for information on their families from the village of Graf. This past year I have totally revamped my website and continue to work on pages. I have added a few new extra pages for friends. You can reach the site by this address: https://www.volgagerman.net/graf
I have not received too much information this year. What I do have so for my collection are: Kulberg Lists, 1766, 1834, 1850, 1857. 1878 Family List, which is not complete and the 1895 Family List which is complete.
Birth records include: 1889, 1890, 1894, 1897, 1908, 1911 and 1914
Marriage records include: 1912, 1914.
Death records include: 1890, 1911, 1914
Map of the village from 1930’s. map of the village from a uncertain date and a Graf Memorial List.
My goal is to get a few more family from the 1878 family list.
I have added an email, “Question? Send me a note…”on each of my web pages. This has seemed to really entice people to send me an email.
I have received a few items from South American. I have learned that sharing the material reaps better benefits then trying to sell any information, especially from Europe or South America. I have received a few photos of families from South America of people who settled there from Graf.
At the current time my database contains 103,582 people from all my villages.
Kevin Rupp
VC for Graf, Russia
Grimm 2016 VC Annual Report
We had a productive year helping researchers find their ancestors. Our list of people researching families from Grimm has expanded to more than 90.
Our dual data bases have grown each time we help someone which makes it easier to help other researchers. Our data bases include all the Grimm surnames starting with the Germans to Denmark list, the Kulberg List, the First Settlers List, the 1775 Census, the 1798 Census, the 1816-1834 Census, the 1850-1857 Census, the 1889 Heads of Family list, and the 1897 Census.
With some exceptions, we are able to trace most surnames back to their German origins .
We were able to help several researchers at the Convention in Concord. We continue to work with other VCs. We can be contacted at our e-mail addresses:
John Groh: gramskids2@gmail.com [1] or at Henry L. Schmick: hschmick@bresnan.net [2].
We look forward to another great year in 2017.
Respectively Submitted by John Groh and Henry Schmick, Co-VCs for the Colony of Grimm
Holstein 2016 VC Annual Report
I took over as VC for the village of Holstein about 6 months ago.
Church records available for Holstein from the Russian Archive in Volgograd are: Births 1799-1851, deaths 1799-1851 & 1904, and marriages 1800-1851, 1894, 1895, and 1905. These records have been purchased and translated, and can be purchased from Ed Hoak. My Lower Volga Project database includes all available records form Holstein, including census for 1798, 1834 and 1857.
During 2016, I had several emails with people concerning people from Holstein, and their descendants.
Holstein is part of the Lower Volga Village Project:
Gary Martens
VC for Holstein
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Huck 2016 VC Annual Report
Correspondence with 15 researchers interested in village Huck during 2016 has been an interesting experience. About half of those 15 were new contacts and being able to answer questions or provide information that helped solve one or more of their research questions was satisfying – and I learned some new tidbits as well. I find Facebook is not a very satisfying method of genealogy or family history record communication, at least for me. A few persons have indicated an interest or asked a question about a Huck ancestor in a FB page – when I’ve responded in a message and suggested that a more direct method be used to discuss the matter and transfer detailed information, the offer of using direct e-mail exchanges is only occasionally agreed to. So I retreat to answering their FB questions one item at a time, and the correspondence sort of ends. Disappointing to me because perhaps while the person only had one question to be answered and didn’t care to learn more or exchange any other information, I also didn’t learn any more about their branch of part of the Huck villagers.
Recent correspondence with Brent Mai and Maggie Hein about challenges for translation of the spelling or translation of a surname with the use (and sometimes limitations of) Cyrillic letters and German sounds was very informative and educational for me. While it answered and clarified how a Russian scribe might use one or more different Cyrillic characters for what a German sound is believed to be, it opened more questions to be resolved about other translation questions. Another example of why I like to use the analogy of genealogy research being like working on a jigsaw puzzle that has no border pieces and there is no picture to help you know what the end result will be.
Dennis Zitterkopf: zitter@cox.net
I have helped 5 people who were looking for their Huck relatives and as Dennis has said persons who make Internet inquiries do not typically like to share their information with us. I have helped 2 others who had Huck ties while volunteering at AHSGR headquarters. I find that people are more willing to share info on a one to one personal basis. I continue to add information to my data base and it is close to 30,000 names now. I would like to do more but find that there are just not enough hours in the day to do it all.
Pam Wurst: volgariver@windstream.net
Hussenbach
This year has been gone by so quickly for me. There just isn’t enough hours in the day as far as I am concerned. I have much to do and I love every minute of it.
I have tried hard to contact each one of the new members that AHSGR headquarters has sent and I have made contact with them and helped them each. I think I sometimes overwhelm people with all that I have to tell them about Hussenbach and all the information. I try to do some training with the new researchers and teach them how things were in Hussenbach to best of my knowledge. I like have them read histories and information from the AHSGR sites and learn as much as they can about their village. I have helped 10 different Hussenbach families this year. Most had little information. I always get a thrill to tell them about their families in Hussenbach. I feel the Hussenbach ancestors are so happy we are connecting families here in the US. Since I am related to most of the Husenbach families through my lines or through marriage I always come out of it with a new relative.
The Intermountain Chapter was a part of the Salt Lake City Kris Kringle Market this year for the second time in their three-year existence. It keeps getting bigger and bigger each year. This year in our booth we sold Christmas ornaments that we purchased from Russia. Its draws them into our booth and they see that we are a genealogical group affiliated with the AHSGR. Some confess, and tell us that their families are GR and we have made great contacts in the valley with them and help and assist them in information that they might not be aware of. I helped find a great grandfather for a Hirshfeldt family member through the Pfeifer VC in December. I have some more research to do with this and will be connecting more with the VC on it.
I am on Face Book and have joined numerous genealogical groups and I get to read everyone’s queries of their families and that they are seeking help. I sometimes get drawn in by these and contact them and see if I can help or teach them some of the tricks of the trade. That’s what it’s all about right? Helping and sharing what we know.
I helped a sweet sweet lady from Oslo Norway last year that was searching for help to look at a film for her at the FHL. Since I am 30 minutes by car to the library I thought a little service would be great and since I was going to be downtown anyway for the RootsTec Conference I went early on the first day. I was in contact with my new virtual friend in Olso on FB as I looked for her great grandfather in the film. Within 10 minutes I located him, his parents and had his full correct name and church birth record. I asked and if she knew if there were any more siblings. As far as she knew there were none. I asked her well let’s take a look and see while we are here in her village Kaliningrad which is a tiny piece of land between Poland and Lithuania that belongs to Russia. It’s an important sea port for Russia seems to be one that does not freeze over in the winter. So within a few minutes and back a couple of years another child popped up. My friend was in tears and so we looked for more and by this time it was 2 am in Oslo and she was willing to stay up of course. All in total we found 7 siblings of her grandfather that she never knew about nor did her mother. We had full names (3) church birth record and christening along with god parents along with photo copied from the film. My friend said to me, ” I might have cousins!!”. Being an only child she was so very happy. I was so happy to be able to give that to her. We still chat on FB at least once a month or share pictures of our grandchildren. And gained new family and I gained a friend forever.
I have one more story I feel compelled to tell you about. I have a family member (who was born in Siberia and now lives in Germany), through marriage on several lines that contacted me and asked if I could help him find his grandfather’s two brothers that came to America in 1912. This was a Tuesday and so immediately got on Family Search and Ancestry to see what popped up. Immediately their names came up. It was like (HERE I AM!!) I contacted Alex and sent him some screen shots to verify that this was the right great uncles. I then searched all the information on them that I could find. I had ship manifests, census records, military records, death certificates, obituaries etc. I found a few pictures and sent them to Alex by the evening and told him that there was a contact person on some of the pictures and I have sent an email out to them. The first contact did not respond so I send it to another one and I thought this has to be the one that will talk to me. I waited till Thursday and at lunch time I got a phone call from a sweet lady named Jeanette who happened to be the 16th child of one of Alex’s great uncles. Her daughter in law Christine was the one I had emailed from Family Search and Ancestry and had sent her my emails pleading for someone to contact me because I had information that they will want to know about family in Russia that are alive. Sweet Jeanette is 81 years old and one of the three siblings that are still alive. Her 92-year-old sister and another sister that is 82 are the remaining children of one uncle. Jeanette told me in her phone call that she was tending one of her other son’s dogs while they were on a trip and that she was in Salt Lake City. (that’s where I live) My mind immediately thought this is a once in a life time moment right now because Jeanette was going to be leaving on Monday to go back to Washington. I had a small window to help make 110 years come together. I quickly contacted Alex and told him of my idea to SKYPE with Jeanette while she was here. The plans were set and at 5:30 on that Saturday afternoon Alex and Jeanette meet over Skype and with a translator to help they talked about their families and Alex showed Jeanette a beautiful spinning wheel of their 4 great grandmother that he had. Family names were added to each family chart and the family was back together again. It was a great visit and they continue to correspond with each other. The Washington family was kind enough to show me a book that the Yakima Valley GR before 1940 had put together. I have been going over all the names in the book that might have come from Hussenbach and connect them with the data base. So much to do!!!!!
I continue to work through the death records from 1900-1908 and track each name to see if I can put them with a family in our database. It is time consuming but very rewarding. As I go through the names I I have to create a birth record from the death date and how old they were when they died and connect them to the database and if there is no record I make note and a new family unit is written down. I then go through all the information that I have to locate anyone that could be connected to this family. I send it off to Sue and she puts it in the database.
I really enjoy the research and meeting new people on line that I can help in their search for family. Thank you all for allowing me to be a part of it.
Shari Mehling Stone
VC Hussenbach
Sharistone2007@gmail.com
Hussenbach 2016 VC Annual Report
This year the Convention was held in Concord, CA and I was the Co-chair with Jerry Siebert. Most of my time was spent on planning the convention and finding speakers. Jorge Bohn, was invited to come from Argentina and has been an asset to the AHSGR organization. Shari Mehling Stone, my co-coordinator gave an interesting presentation on the use of camels in the Volga colonies. Artifacts from the Central California Chapter Museum and Library, in Fresno, CA, were shown; a camel hair blanket, combs for preparing the yarn and a camel skull.
I received about a dozen email inquiries for information on Hussenbachers. The Facebook page continues to be quite active and also had many requests and discussions. Most of my other email is between other VC’s as we connect family lines from village to village.
One of my new projects is to review family lines now that we have most of the records translated. I did this for an inquiry of the Schilling family name, with the information from the descendants, I was able to clean up some of the orphan lines and take him back to the immigrant ancestor.
The one question we were not able to completely verify was the family story of the father, and some of the children, returning to Russia after the wife died in Colorado in 1907. Does anyone know of a place to find records on people returning to Russia?
We are nearing completion of the translation of the Volgograd records. David Nelson and Viktor Zinn translated the records past 1896 that were in Russian. Viktor has continued to work on some of the German records which has been a tremendous help. I thank both of them for their generous donation of their time. I have been working inputting the 3000+ Neu-Hussenbach birth records into the Hussenbach database. Shari has been working with the ~1500 Neu-Hussenbach and Hussenbach death records.
Hussenbach Records found in the Volgograd Archives:
For Linevo Osero:
Births: 1818-1838, 1839-1853; 1861 translated by Viktor Zinn, 1896-1904, 1906-1909, translated by David Nelson; 1854-1860 need to be translated. Records have been found for the missing years of 1904-1906 and were translated by Alexander Baumung.
Marriages: 1818-1838, 1902-1908, translated by David Nelson.
Deaths: 1818-1838 translated by Viktor Zinn and Luisa Schulz; 1896-1908, translated by Viktor Zinn, 1900-1908 translated by David Nelson. 1839-1858 were translated by Viktor Zinn and his group in Germany.
For Gashon:
Births: 1862-1895, translated by Viktor Zinn.
Marriages: 1878-1902, translated by Viktor Zinn.
Deaths: 1862-1895, translated by Viktor Zinn, 1896-1899, translated by Viktor Zinn.
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 42,323 names in the database consisting of 32,628 families. I appreciate all of the information fellow Hussenbachers have shared with me. I found a large group of Hussenbach names in the 1921 Canadian census in the area of Rhein, Saskatchewan. I will have to do further exploration of this area as it seems to be a popular place where Hussenbachers immigrated. 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 receive inquiries off of the webpage, my Facebook page for Hussenbach now has 226 members. Facebook posts generate many postings generating multiple comments. Connections have been made with people from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Germany. There is also a Suppes Hussenbach Facebook page for people that descend from that name.
As many people know, a First Settler’s List for Hussenbach has not been found. I have reconstructed a list of people who were probably the First Settlers of Hussenbach. I used Pleve’s: Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports to Ivan Kulberg;” Dr. Brent A. Mai’s: 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture, Volumes 1 and 2; Transport of the Volga Germans from Oranienbaum to the Colonies on the Volga 1766-1767; Mai and Marquardt’s: German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767): Origins and Destinations; Combined Surname Index to All Volumes of Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 by Igor Pleve compiled by Brent Alan Mai, and Femling’s website: “Budingen Marriages 1766.”
Using the above resources I was able to come up with 116 probable families. The list has more entries because I listed the females separately when the maiden name was known, even though they may have arrived as a married couple. This will facilitate the next step of discovering their origins in the German Nations of 1766, Poland and other countries. Questions, corrections or comments are welcome. Updates to have been made to some of the families in the list and posted in the revision on the Hussenbach Facebook page.
I obtained a copy of the 1897 Census for the Hussenbach village there are over 1,000 pages, it is thought to contain information on two other nearby villages. I am awaiting a translation of this census.
The 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. This will need to be updated when the records are finished with translation.
Susan Hopp Nakaji
Co-Hussenbach Village Coordinator
Johannestal 2016 VC Annual Report
I had four queries about Johannestal this year, three of which I was able to help some. Most helpful has been an extended family genealogy that covers many Johannestal families.
It never ceases to amaze me how often I expend great effort, but never receive even the most-quick thanks for the effort.
Ray Heinle
Gilbert, Arizona, USA
GRHS and AHSGR Village Coordinator for Johannestal, Beresan, Odessa, Russia http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/johannestal.html
Josefstal 2016 VC Annual Report
I received no inquiries this year for Josefstal. I am working on an English translation of the Josefstal history book….I do hope it might be ready by the fall.
Sorry, but that is all I have to report.
Edward (Ted) Gerk
Jost 2016 VC Annual Report
There have been a few inquiries for Jost in 2016. Facebook remains the most active source for inquiries and information. I haven’t posted often, but I do respond quickly to requests and follow up on information others post. Village descendants often find relatives on the site.
Thanks to the persistence of Dodie Rotherham, Laub coordinator, there has been an influx of Kanton Kukkus records. Unfortunately, not so much for Jost. I have entered all the Jost birth records we have into an Excel file for years 1794-1811, Stier surname births 1815-1864, and some Wenig births 1858-1864. We’re waiting for the remaining records. However, even though we have select Jost surname births 1815-1864, received years ago, the achieve researchers insist that there are no Jost records beyond 1811. So we wait.
In the meantime, I’m working on a translation of the Straub birth records. With the close proximity of the villages, I’ve found many Jost families among the baptismal witnesses.
I had the pleasure of attending the 2016 convention in Concord, CA, and I look forward to the Milwaukee convention in August 2017.
Beth Mueller Davenport
Jost Village Coordinator
See the village of Cäsarsfeld for more details.
David F. Schmidt
Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Kautz 2016 VC Annual Report
This has been a busy year for Kautz research. Now that I have more experience with Cyrillic records, I am going back through Kautz and Dietel Lutheran church records, identifying those records which were previously difficult to read. My Cyrillic skills have improved to the point that I can now more easily recognize more difficult handwriting.
Throughout the year I have tried to keep abreast with deaths of Kautz descendants. This process has been made infinitely easier by the relevant obituaries retrieved and shared by Henry Schmick.
In July, I attended the AHSGR convention in Concord, California.
On August 9, I departed JFK airport for Moscow, participating in an excellent Volga-German Bergseite tour with about 39 others, hosted by Brent Mai and Mila Koretnikov. We visited Saratov, Volgograd, Zhirnovsk, and the Volga-German Bergseite villages of:
Dobrinka, Galka, Schwab, Holstein, Scherbakovka, Walter, Frank, Kolb, Hussenbach
Kratzke, Merkel, Grimm, Norka, Dönhof, Dietel, Kautz, Bauer, Grimm, Messer, Balzer, Moor, Beideck, Schilling, Kamenka, Pfeifer, and Kraft
I was able to visit the Wiesenseite towns of Engels (German Cultural Center), Marx, and the new church in the original Volga-German village of Zürich. We visited many great cultural landmarks in Saratov and Volgograd. Flying from Volgograd to Moscow to New York to Portland, Oregon, I returned home on August 20.
While in Russia, I was able to participate in a tour of Kautz, hosted by Vera Nikishina and two local experts from Dietel and Hussenbach. We surveyed the town’s layout, examined different parts of the destroyed village, and walked to the Karamysch River which borders the village on the north, the one my grandmother would have used to do the family’s laundry.
Beneath the rubble of a demolished house, Vera was able to examine an underground Kautz cellar, still perfectly formed with arched ceilings after all these years.
After my return from Russia a roundtable was organized as an Oregon AHSGR Chapter meeting. A group of five of us from the tour, living in the Pacific Northwest, talked about our experiences and had a productive question and answer session.
From the trip, I amassed about 18 gigabytes of photos and video from the various villages listed above. The media is stored on a USB drive and I have lent the drive out to interested parties from our chapter and beyond.
I would be willing to e-mail photographs of particular villages I visited to those who might have an interest. The old houses and churches still standing are amazing. My e-mail address is dm48@comcast.net.
I continue to produce an Oregon Chapter AHSGR newsletter every two months and am on the Chapter’s Board of Directors. Excerpts from the tour are detailed more in the September/October and November/December issues of the newsletter which can be found at:
http://www.oregonahsgr.org/newsletter.html.
The CD I produce for my village of Kautz (Unsere Leute von Kautz) will be updated in the next several months to reflect the Russian tour.
Prior to the Russia tour, I volunteered to take on the job of Village Coordinator for Merkel. The first mayor of Kautz (for which Kautz was named), later moved to Merkel with his family and was prominent there for many generations. My grandmother’s Knaub line was from Merkel, though she grew up in Kautz. I have been accumulating and processing many records for Merkel. I was given a Merkel GEDCOM file by AHSGR Lincoln. I have a number of years of Merkel Lutheran church records and have been processing same.
Since there were so many interactions between villagers of Kautz and Merkel, including marriages, rather than maintain two sets of identical genealogical information, I have merged Merkel individuals into the Kautz genealogical database which now contains 31,180 individuals. A separate Merkel spreadsheet will continue to exist and expand for information extracted from current and future Merkel Lutheran church records. Kautz and Merkel were situated about 7 miles apart (as the crow flies).
I continue to assist the AHSGR Village Coordinator for Dietel, Karen Bouton, with the integration of Lutheran church records from her village into her Dietel genealogical database.
Working with Dona Reeves-Marquardt, I assisted in the translation of names, parental names, and dates from the Cyrillic portion of Lutheran church records for the village Neu-Dönhof. The resulting large spreadsheet was enough to allow for the start of work on a detailed genealogical database for that village. The spreadsheet included a section which grouped individuals by family and another which listed village events (births, marriages, and deaths) chronologically.
Living in Vancouver, Washington, I am able to easily frequent the Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. The drive takes about 20 minutes. CVGS has a fine library and a great staff to assist with questions.
I’m looking forward to events in 2017 which will honor the establishment of most of the Volga-German villages in 1767. This year marks the 250th anniversary.
Michael Frank
Village Coordinator for Kautz and Merkel
Sussanental 2016 VC Annual Report
This year has seen more requests for assistance than usual. I have been able to assist 5 persons with information about their families from Susannental.
3 persons requested assistance, but their families immigrated from Germany and not Russia although they had surnames from the village.
The Susannental data base now consists of 13020 individuals. Our pre immigration data base consists of 3728 individuals.
These records are available for Susannental:
1st settler list
1798 census
1816 census
1834 census
1857 census
Personal family book records have been obtained for 1 surname.
There is a website, mail list, Facebook page and Facebook group for the village.
Some Information for the villages of Kind and Meinhard is also part of the records as there was a lot of intermarriage between these villages.
Kerry Thompson
VC for Susannental
Kamenka 2016 VC Annual Report
During 2016 over a dozen requests were answered.
Many of the requests were from Argentina for family information I was able to help most of them.
Some from the US and Germany I was able to help fill in family lines back to the original immigrant ancestors in Russia.
Requests submitted were for: Maurer, Schwindt, Braun, Walter, Schwerdt, Streitenberger,
Donation to AHSGR of Facius List [in German script] of immigrants to Russia during the period 13.11.1765 – 18.02.1766 from the Frankfort on Main area–not translated. An alphabetized list of name, age, religion and village of origin were translated.
Also donated to AHSGR are the original and translated copy of 1834 Hildman and 1834 Goebel census’.
Respectfully submitted,
Rosemary Larson
AHSGR VC Kamenka
Konstantinovka 2016 VC Annual Report
Konstantinovka was founded in 1859 and there was a nearby daughter colony called Schilling, founded at about the same time. These two villages were within 1-2 miles of each other, and eventually became known as one village called Konstantinovka. Konstantinovka was located about 80 miles southeast of Saratov.
Church records for Konstantinovka are at the Russian Archives in Saratov.
Those records contain birth records for 1895-1919, death records for 1895-1906, marriage records for 1895-1908, Confirmations for 1895-1915; communion registry (Family List) for 1895- 1905.
During 2016, I had 2 emails from people concerning ancestors from Konstantinovka, and their descendants, although frequently people looking for ancestors who think they were from Schilling were actually from one of the daughter colonies. The primary means of communication for things related to Konstantinovka are through the Schilling website:
Gary Martens
VC for Konstantinovka
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Krasnoyar 2016 VC Annual Report
There is not much to report for the village of Krasnoyar. There were 2 new members and I have contacted them but they have yet to respond. The census records for the years 1798, 1834, 1850 and 1857 have been available for some time. I have copies of all those records and have entered the families into my data base. My cousin George Valko is involved in DNA research and he will be submitting my DNA as part of his research for the Veller family from Krasnoyar. On the face book page for Krasnojar there has been some new information added but very little other activity. I am looking forward to the 2017 convention being held in Milwaukee since it is not far from home.
Susie Weber Hess
VC for Krasnoyar
Kukkus Kanton 2016 VC Annual Report
The Family Lists for Neu Tarlyk, 1920, Dinkel and Kukkus Village, 1920 have been purchased and are being translated. This info will be available later this spring.
Numerous Birth, Marriage, Death records for Laub, Straub, Warenburg and Dinkel are being translated and will be available through AHSGR.org
Warenburg and Lauwe Family lists were translated and available after the
2016 AHSGR convention.
Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Kukkus Kanton 2016 VC Annual Report
This has been an interesting year. I have been on a Church full time mission, at the Family History Library, in Salt Lake City, Utah. I serve on the International floor, helping people from all over the world. While here, I was able to research and learn more about the Germans from Russia resources.
The first day here on duty, I met a lady who was looking for information about a Philipp Krum from Kukkus, Russia. She happened to be searching for one of my grandfather’s cousins, who lived in Fresno, California. She attended the last meeting of the Sacramento Valley Chapter. She lives only 20 minutes from where we live in California.
I have been able to help many people who were looking for ancestors from various German Villages in Russia. We have encouraged them to join the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR). I know of at least 3 persons who have become life members. Others we encouraged to join local chapters where they live.
My husband, Alton, taught a class in 2015 about the Germans from Russia. He has trained the paid staff, here, how to help guests with this research. One of the staff persons has come to the Utah chapter meetings and plans to continue to learn more about this heritage. One very special lady, who volunteers here at the Library, does Poland and other nearby countries, that have at times been part of Russia research. She has joined AHSGR as well, so she can help GRs. Elder Dolberg, one of our new life members will be a great resource for AHSGR, if you need help translating documents. He has been a Professor of German Studies and has taught the German language for over thirty years. He is excited about AHSGR and has had much success in finding records.
The Intermountain Chapter, in Utah, has donated a complete set of maps for the German Villages and they are now cataloged into the Family Search Library system. They are looking to get more censuses for the villages. Last week a person, seeking to catalog the maps, brought me a map and asked if I could tell him what it was and how it should be cataloged. I was able to tell him which village it was, that it listed the persons who lived in Kukkus and where they lived. There are many people looking for information about their villages and family names. The AHSGR Obituary Collection, in FamilySearch.org, is a wonderful help to many of our guests.
The database for Kukkus is up to 13,100 plus names and is steadily growing. Alton and I are finished with our mission on March 24, 2016, and will be going home to Orangevale, California. My Krum(m) relatives, in Saint George, Utah started a Krum family association in June 2015. I met a lady from Medicine Hat, Canada who had the MASER (MAASER) surname, the same as my paternal grandmother. Her family went to the Black Sea villages.
I did not have a lot of queries for information sharing in 2016. At convention in Concord, California, I was given a 113 page updated list of several families which I updated in the Kukkus file. In April of 2016, I met a person from Lincoln, Nebraska whose wife had a grandmother who married on of my great uncles. We exchanged family information. On the twenty seventh of December, we met an acquaintance who we had not seen since
1967 who has a friend who is a German Russian descendant of the Reifschneider family of Kukkus. We contacted him the next day and will exchange information when he goes back home from his vacation. I was able to meet a lady at the Sacramento Family Search Library who has ancestors from Balzer. I gave her the address, phone# and e-mail address for the Balzer village coordinators.
I am very excited about the Kukkus Canton records being translated. I bought a book at convention, “March to the Volga”. It is an excellent book about the journey from Germany to Russia.
Eleanor Sissell Kukkus Village Coordinator.
Langenfeld 2016 VC Annual Report
Roger Burbach/Burbank. New VC for Rosenfeld Am Jeruslan and Langenfeld. I have nothing for these Villages other then 1857 Census. I found these Villages doing my wife’s side. Her Bastron’s were in Frank 1857 and Langenfeld 1857 census. Her Mohr’s were in Norka and Rosenfeld 1857 census.
I hope to find more descendants from these Villages and can in the future order some docs from these Villages. I have been emailing with Mila on what is available. I see some confusion with this Rosenfeld and Norka and other Villages called Rosenfeld. This Rosenfeld is also known as Norki.
Laub 2016 VC Annual Report
This has been a busy year for Laub and the Kukkus Kanton. Due to a generous donation from a private foundation we were able to purchase numerous records for Laub and other villages in the Kanton. To date we have received records for the villages of Laub, Lauwe, Dinkel, Straub, Warenburg and Kukkus. Records are coming in very quickly and we are translating and preparing for sale through AHSGR.
The 1794-1825 birth records for Laub have been translated and are available for purchase. These records are a great help to researchers as they contain maiden names and godparent’s names. We also have received marriage and death records for the years 1826-1833. These records are being translated and will be available in the next few months at AHSGR.
There have been a few requests for assistance from Germany and the US. Most requests have come through the Laub or German – Russia Connections Facebook pages. Also, DNA seems to be bringing more people to our page and I personally have been able to connect with new cousins and help others find Laub relationships.
2017 we will continue to purchase and translate records for the Kanton and will have many new records available for purchase at the AHSGR convention in August.
A big thank you to Kevin Rupp for his dedication to helping obtain all the Kukkus Kanton records and also, Sharon White, VC Warenburg and Straub, Beth Davenport, VC Jost, Patricia Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub and Bob Meininger, Board of Directors, AHSGR, for their dedicated work, time and energy to translate and edit all the many and difficult Russian and German records for the Kukkus Kanton.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Lauwe 2016 VC Annual Report
During 2016 I received seven queries about Lauwe. By far the most help for me in answering these queries is the 1886 Family list.
In July I was informed that the AHSGR wanted to print a copy of this family list for sale at the convention. I was asked to produce an index in a crash project that took me several days. I continued raising my objection to selling a product that was not checked by someone more proficient in Russian than I. HQ did print the List although I do not know how many copies sold.
Fortunately, Jim Weibert has taken the list, which was formatted as a Microsoft Word table and converted it to an Excel spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are much easier to work with than the original table form. He also re-did the index and hopefully a new version can be released soon. Thanks, Jim!
In February I attended Brent Mai’s symposium on the Volga Germans in Scottsdale.
Ray Heinle
Gilbert, Arizona, USA
AHSGR Village Coordinator for Lauwe, Volga, Russia http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/lauwe/lauwe.html
Leichtling 2016 VC Annual Report
This year I spent a lot of time trying to find any “later year” (1857 and later) census records for the village. It has come up negative.
We received about 3 requests for information on families in the village.
That is way down from previous years. But we were able to connect them to the other members doing the same names in the village.
Not much “new” information about the village this year, but we keep looking.
I’m getting ready to package up all the information on the village (including census records (complete) and sending off to AHSGR. I’m not getting any younger and I don’t want any of this information lost. I recommend that all the Village Coordinators consider doing the same.
Again, a very slow year as I believe Leichtling was a village where very few were able to get out of.
Darryl Boyd
Village Coordinator for Leichtling, Volga, Russia Leichtling@boydhouse.com
Louis 2016 VC Annual Report
I have received several requests this year from Germany, Russia, South America and the United States. I have updated my website for Louis and continue to add what information I have to the site as it becomes available.
The History of Louis written by Olga Litzenberger has been added to my website and AHSGR has also printed this article in the Journal. You can reach the site by this address: http://www.volgagerman.net/louis-russia
Besides the census records of 1834, 1850, and 1857 I am trying to obtain the church records little by little. This year I have placed an order for the 1851 and 1852 marriage records. Sine Louis was not its own parish at the time, but a mission the Mariental, the 1851 and 1852 marriages contain both villages.
Other birth years include: 1888, 1890, and 1909. Marriage records include: 1848, 1849, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1888, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1902, 1903, and 1904.
I was able to get the birth records of Bishop Josef Alois Kessler who came to this area of Kansas asking for funds to help those still in Russia. I suspect that he is a relative of mine since my great Grandmother was also a Kessler from Louis, coming to Kansas in 1909.
At the current time my database contains 103,582 people from all my villages.
Kevin Rupp
VC for Louis, Russia
Marienberg 2016 VC Annual Report
Over the past year, I’ve been able to add to the villages of Bergdorf and Marienberg. I ended up combining them, because as far as families are concerned, there is a very thin line between the two, even though there is some distance between them.
Diane sent me two new members. One of them, has family in all three of my villages, and I’ve added some of her ancestors to them.
I have received no requests for information, except from a person who got the Marienberg in the Black Sea region confused with the Marienberg in the Volga region, and I redirected him. As it turned out, there’s a good possibility he’s related to me through my mother’s family (my father is all Black Sea, and my mother is directly from Germany).
That’s about all there is this year.
*Sylvia M. Hertel*
*Village Coordinator*
*Bergdorf and Marienberg by the Black Sea*
Mariental 2016 CO-VC Annual Report
I am a Co-Coordinator with Denise Grau for the village of Mariental after Thelma Mills retired.
I received a few emails from the village from the States, South America and Europe.
This past year I have totally revamped my website and continue to work on pages. I have added a few new extra pages for friends. You can reach the site by this address: https://www.volgagerman.net/mariental-russia . Many thanks to Thelma and Denise for contributing information for this web page.
Most of the information that I have is listed on my website. This year I did order marriage records for Louis for 1851 and 1852. I was told that this would also include the village of Mariental since Louis belonged to the parish of Mariental.
I did have a couple of Volk Auf dem Weg articles translated on Mariental one of the articles is: Mariental – a Village on the Great Karaman: On the 250th Anniversary of the Founding of the German Colony on the Volga by Albert Obholz. Albert Obholz has written a number of books two so far on the Catholic colonies on the Volga. One book that came out in 2011 is, “Die Kolonie Mariental an der Wolga” which was put out by Historischen Forschungsverein Deutschen aus Russland. The book is written in German and Russian. Another book written by Albert Obholz this year is, “Die Kolonie Kamenka an der Wolga”. Although this is not my colony, I do have people from this area and the book is worth mentioning. I think Albert’s goal is to do a few more of these books. This book is in German and includes census list for 1798, 1834, 1850, 1857. Just tons of information in these books.
I did attend the 250th Celebration that Brent Mai had in Hays, Kansas in June which covered those Catholic colonies that celebrated 250 years. These included Graf, Katharinenstadt, Rohleder, Rohleder, Louis Herzog, Schuck and Volmer. The event was very well attended.
At the current time my database contains 103,582 people from all my villages.
Kevin Rupp
Co-VC for Mariental, Russia
Kevin Rupp
Meinhard 2016 VC Annual Report
This year has seen more requests for assistance than usual. I have been able to assist 5 persons with information about their families from Susannental.
3 persons requested assistance, but their families immigrated from Germany and not Russia although they had surnames from the village.
The Susannental data base now consists of 13020 individuals. Our pre immigration data base consists of 3728 individuals.
These records are available for Susannental:
1st settler list
1798 census
1816 census
1834 census
1857 census
Personal family book records have been obtained for 1 surname.
There is a website, mail list, Facebook page and Facebook group for the village.
Some Information for the villages of Kind and Meinhard is also part of the records as there was a lot of intermarriage between these villages.
Kerry Thompson
VC for Susannental
Mennnonite Colonies 2016 VC Annual Report
(60 villages, plus many daughter colonies)
I had inquiries from a total of 13 different people this past year. About six of these were researching Molotschna Colonies. The families of others who contacted me ended up being from different areas in the Ukraine, although some their families immigrated to areas where Mennonites settled in the United States, such as Kansas. A serendipitous moment came when three of these researchers had families that immigrated to my home town and church at Hillsboro, KS.
The inquiries about Molotschna Colonies included Friedensdorg, Ladekopp, Lichtfeld, Kleefeld, Lichtenau (Likhtenau), Muensterberg, and Schardau. One person advised her grandfather’s family came from Helensfeild. In all my research and going through the thorough list of Dr. Tim Janzen’s online Mennonite villages from all areas in Russia, I was unable to find anything even close to a village by this name. Family names being researched included Boese, Decker, Friesen, Harder, Giesbrecht, Huebert, Jantz, Kleinsasser, Koehn, Loewen, Nachtigal, Penner, Reimer, Schmidt, Schroeder, Siemens, Spenst/Spence, Toews, Unruh, Voth, and Warkentin.
Additionally, I had contact with five new members, offering to help with their research.
There were also contacts from three people whose families came from the Lutheran Grunau, Belowesch, or Mariupol (one area, known by various names) in Southern Ukraine near the Sea of Azov, of which numerous families became Mennonite. One person, researching the Schultz and Rogalski families, drove to Kansas from Minnesota to research with me for a day. Her family originally were Lutheran (like several of my ancestors), who joined the Mennonite church near Hillsboro in which I grew up. Another person was researching the Stelting family, whose ancestors are buried in the cemetery in Kansas where most of my ancestors are buried.
Karen Penner
Merkel (Makarovka) 2016 VC Annual Report
Prior to the Russia tour in August, I volunteered to take on the job of Village Coordinator for Merkel. The first mayor of Kautz (for which Kautz was named), later moved to Merkel with his family and was prominent there for many generations. My grandmother’s Knaub line was from Merkel, though she grew up in Kautz. I have been accumulating and processing many records for Merkel including a Merkel GEDCOM file provided by AHSGR Lincoln. I have a number of years of Merkel Lutheran church records and have been processing same. Two published Merkel books by Darrell Kautz, former AHSGR Merkel Village Coordinator, are being reviewed by me.
Since there were so many interactions between villagers of Kautz and Merkel, including marriages, rather than maintain two sets of identical genealogical information, I have merged Merkel individuals into the Kautz genealogical database which now contains 31,180 individuals. A separate Merkel spreadsheet will continue to exist and expand for information extracted from current and future Merkel Lutheran church records. Kautz and Merkel were situated about 7 miles apart (as the crow flies).
I was able to visit Merkel in August 2016 and take photographs and video during my brief visit to the village during my excellent Russia tour which was hosted by Brent Mai and Mila Koretnikov. The village is a shell of its former self. Most houses have been destroyed. A small number of houses still remain on both sides of the existing secondary highway. I found a small antique bottle embedded in the dirt near a grove of trees and a demolished house. It is now a treasure, occupying a place of honor in my home.
Anyone who would like photos I took of this village should notify me at dm48@comcast.net if they would like me to e-mail a copy of those photos.
Michael Frank
Merkel (and Kautz) Village Coordinator for AHSGR
Messer 2016 Annual VC Report
During 2016 I answered several requests for information on Messer, and was able to help many of those individuals with their research. 2016 was the 250th anniversary of Messer’s founding, and the CVGS hosted an event in Ft. Collins, Colorado in July which included a celebration of that event. I attended, and presented the “History of Messer”. We had a number of Messer descendants who attended my session and we enjoyed the chance to share pictures, stories, and other information.
Two Messer / Neu Messer Newsletters were sent out during 2016; one in April and the other in October. I was also able to attend the AHSGR Convention in Concord, CA in July and one of the evenings the Messer and Neu Messer descendants got together for Dinner.
In August I took part in Brent Mai’s Volga Bergseite Tour, which included a visit to Messer and nearly 30 other Bergseite colonies. It was a very well organized trip and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In Messer, I was able to see the ruins of the church and several other old German buildings.
Messer descendants have been making contributions to a fund to acquire additional Messer and Neu Messer records from the Russian Archives. We obtained some Neu Messer records in 2016, and plan to acquire some Messer records in 2017.
The Messer / Neu Messer Distribution/Mailing List continues to grow and now includes nearly 70 individuals. The Messer / Neu Messer database also continues to grow and now has over 12,700 names of Messer colonists and their descendants.
Mike Meisinger
Messer Village Coordinator
Molotschna, Taurida, Mennnonite Colonies 2016 VC Annual Report
(60 villages, plus many daughter colonies)
I had inquiries from a total of 13 different people this past year. About six of these were researching Molotschna Colonies. The families of others who contacted me ended up being from different areas in the Ukraine, although some their families immigrated to areas where Mennonites settled in the United States, such as Kansas. A serendipitous moment came when three of these researchers had families that immigrated to my home town and church at Hillsboro, KS.
The inquiries about Molotschna Colonies included Friedensdorg, Ladekopp, Lichtfeld, Kleefeld, Lichtenau (Likhtenau), Muensterberg, and Schardau. One person advised her grandfather’s family came from Helensfeild. In all my research and going through the thorough list of Dr. Tim Janzen’s online Mennonite villages from all areas in Russia, I was unable to find anything even close to a village by this name. Family names being researched included Boese, Decker, Friesen, Harder, Giesbrecht, Huebert, Jantz, Kleinsasser, Koehn, Loewen, Nachtigal, Penner, Reimer, Schmidt, Schroeder, Siemens, Spenst/Spence, Toews, Unruh, Voth, and Warkentin.
Additionally, I had contact with five new members, offering to help with their research.
There were also contacts from three people whose families came from the Lutheran Grunau, Belowesch, or Mariupol (one area, known by various names) in Southern Ukraine near the Sea of Azov, of which numerous families became Mennonite. One person, researching the Schultz and Rogalski families, drove to Kansas from Minnesota to research with me for a day. Her family originally were Lutheran (like several of my ancestors), who joined the Mennonite church near Hillsboro in which I grew up. Another person was researching the Stelting family, whose ancestors are buried in the cemetery in Kansas where most of my ancestors are buried.
Karen Penner
Moor (Klutchi) 2016 VC Annual Report
This has been an active year for Moor research.
Several new Moor researchers have joined AHSGR and I have contacted them. Unfortunately, we also lost contact with some of the long-time members.
We also issued a newsletter this year after a hiatus of 3 years.
At the beginning of the year Maggie Hein, VC for Frank and Kolb, shared a new website with me that is maintained in Russia (?). The site names countless Germans from the Gelnhausen region of Isenburg who were listed on transport lists composed by Johann Facius. Apparently, the original documents are maintained in Gelhausen. I determined that no less than 15 original Moor settler families are listed in these transport lists. Maggie also encouraged me to sign up for the Archion.de site which provides numerous church records previously not available through the LDS family history library system. Using the two websites in tandem, I was able to positively identify the baptism and marriage records for all 15 families composed of no less than 65 individuals. In twenty years of researching German origins for Moor, I have never found this many origins within such a short time span. I now have identified the German origin of about 40 percent of the Moor original settlers.
Two additional Moor families were confirmed through the LDS family history system and Ancestry.com.
I attended the convention in July and gave a presentation on Huguenot families who where part of the original Volga settlers. This included two families who went to Moor (Galloy and Shierat)
Throughout the year, I was able to help a few Moor researchers in the United States and Germany.
I have finally begun ordering records from the Engels archives, but sadly, no 1897 census or Communion records seem to have survived for Moor. Next year, with the financial support of other researchers, I plan to order some early Moor baptism records.
Research will continue on Ancestry.com and through the records of the LDS Family History system. A newsletter is planned for early 2017.
The year ended on a sad note that fellow VC coordinator Irma Waggoner has resigned her position due to poor eye sight. I wish her well and thank her for years of support.
Happy New Year to All!!!!!
Wayne H. Bonner VC Chair for Moor
15619 Ogram Avenue
Gardena, CA 90249-4445
Mueller 2016 VC Annual Report
I took over as VC for the village of Mueller about 6 months ago.
There are no known church records available for Mueller. The only records available for the village are census for 1798, 1834 and 1857. Holstein is part of the Lower Volga Village Project: http://www.lowervolga.org/
People from Mueller moved to the following daughter colonies when they were founded:
Eckheim (1855), Gnadentau (1860), Neu-Müller (1860), Oberdorf (1852), and Wiesenmüller (1857).
During 2016, I had several emails with people concerning people from Mueller, and their descendants.
Gary Martens
VC for Mueller
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Nieder-Monjou 2016 VC Annual Report
This year we received queries or correspondence for the following Nieder-Monjou surnames BETZ, BINEDELL/BIENEDELL, BORK/BORG, FUNK, MUELLER, and ULRICH. The queries and correspondence came from Germany, South Africa, and the United States.
Mike attended the AHSGR 2016 Convention in Concord, California. Mike met up with Alexander Shpack from Russia in California. Alexander has Nieder-Monjou roots.
Nieder-Monjou AHSGR Village Coordinators Michael Grau and Steven Grau Nieder-Monjou Web Site: http://volga.niedermonjou.org:8000/
Neu-Balzer 2016 VC Annual Report
I have been contacted by 2 people asking about families from Neu-Balzer. One contact may have information to add to our current database of over 300 individuals. I have also found another family that was deported from Neu-Balzer in 1941 and sent to Siberia. The process to place this family into the correct family unit is my next project.
My goal for next year is to follow up on individuals sent to Siberia and to place them into family units that came to America. A long term goal is to find a list of people that left Balzer and other villages around 1863 and settled in Neu-Balzer. I also plan to use current DNA reports to find others from Neu-Balzer. The new CLUES magazine has listed some new possibilities.
Marv Heckman
VC for Neu-Balzer
Neu-Boaro 2016 VC Annual Report
The following annual report is submitted for Boaro/Boisroux, one of three villages for which I am Village Coordinator.
Boaro, which was founded on June 7, 1767, was one of the colonies of private director Baron Caneau de Beauregard. It was located on the Wiesenseite (east side of the Volga) northeast of Saratov along the Little Karaman River. Boaro was one of the colonies that temporarily housed colonists destined for other colonies pending completion of facilities in the other colonies. The First Settlers List for Boaro lists 97 families in Boaro itself and an additional 81 families that were scheduled to be resettled in other colonies. Boaro also received colonists from Cäsarsfeld, which was located adjacent to Boaro, following the abandonment or destruction of Cäsarsfeld.
For Boaro, I have the 1767 First Settlers List, which is published in Volume 1 of Dr. Pleve’s book “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767,” and the complete 1798 Census, 1850 Census, and 1857 Census. In addition, the 1834 Census, which has been obtained by the Center for Volga German Studies, is in the process of being transcribed/translated and should be available later this year. The following church records are available for Boaro:
Engels Archive — baptisms 1849-65.
Saratov Archive — baptisms 1878-1915, 1919-20; marriages 1834-37, 1839-1915; deaths 1862-77, 1895-1912, 1919-20.
In addition, village administration records are available from 1836-1916 and there are family lists for 1883 and 1850. Church records from Neu-Boaro, a daughter colony of Boaro, consist of the following: baptisms 1896-1921; marriages 1870-1910; deaths 1919-20.
In 2016, I had one inquiry relating to Boaro–from someone researching the Halle family. That contact and research is still ongoing, as I try to sort out whether certain early records are for Halle or Hoppe (another Boaro family name).
In recent years, I have put substantial effort into locating descendants from the various Schmidt families in Boaro (there were 8 different ones in the Boaro FSL) to see if I could find some related to my Schmidt family, which moved from Boaro to Stahl am Karaman in the 1820s. I finally received a contact from a Schmidt family in Germany that came from Neu-Boaro and earlier from Boaro. By comparing family and archival records, we determined that their ancestor Carl Ludwig Schmidt (b. ca. 1807 in Boaro) and my great-great-great grandfather Johann Adam Schmidt (b. ca. 1803 in Boaro) were brothers. A Y-DNA test through Family Tree DNA confirmed a genetic connection between our two lines, presumably dating back to our common ancestor–Johann Christoph Schmidt, who was born in Gohrau, Anhalt-Dessau, in 1758 and who settled in Boaro as an 8-year-old orphan (both his parents died on the way to the Volga). To establish a connection between these two branches of my Schmidt family, which have been separated for almost 200 years, is one of the most satisfying accomplishments of my research.
David F. Schmidt
Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Email: schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com
Neu-Doenhof 2016 VC Annual Report
Karen Miller-Kaiser the VC for Doenhof and I continue our collaboration. She helped with the Neu-Doenhof proofreading of death records and fundraising which I will let her tell you about and she is doing some translation work as we speak to brush up on some old skills. Hopefully she will be able to help us in the future.
I had genealogical requests from the Bauers, Lohgerels, Muellers, Rutz’, Schwab, Schwarzkopfs and multiple Lind families and was able to fulfill them. One request was from Germany. Debbie Lind Persinger, Edmund Ring and I continue to try to unravel the mystery of the Linds from Doenhof and Neu-Doenhof in the U.S.
We acquired 23 new followers this year.
Last year I announced that I was looking for a copy of the book written by Rev. William J. Lind aka Joh. Wilhelm Lind of Doenhof and Kansas titled Ein Rhatgeber fur die Familie in der Krankenpflege. Rev. Lind built the Lind Hospital and Training School in Hoisington, Kans. Rev. Lind’s grandson, Larry Heffel, provided an original book and I learned that there was only one copy in a college special collection at Bethel College in Kansas.
I attended the international convention in Concord, Calif. in July. We had approximately 10 village members at our meeting on Friday evening. Most of the discussion centered on the delays in getting the Russian portion of the Neu-Doenhof records translated as the German translations have been completed for over a year. At the October AHSGR Board meeting it was decided that Yulia Tsymbal would complete the translation. In a conference call with Patty Loos Pewelko, Yulia felt she could complete the translation by March 1 but that we would check back on February 1.
In October I visited Fulton County, Ohio, some of you may remember your parents or grandparents corresponding with relatives in Wauseon. I would compare Wauseon and surrounding towns to Windsor and Weld County when it comes to the settlement patterns of Doenhoffers. Our own Patti Fraker took her time to show me the old neighborhood; the two still standing churches, one cemetery and historical society. We moved on to visit Bill Lind and two cousins who remembered that his grandfather had traveled to this country with Peter Stoll of Windsor and was astounded that Peter’s son Harold was still alive at 97. There is not a single member of AHSGR in all of Fulton County for which they have no knowledge. They do have copies of Fred Koch book published in the 70s because it was published by the Univ. of Penn. press and distributed widely in small bookstores in the region.
I moved on to Seneca and Wayne County, NY, where I had traced three G-R families, two from Doenhof and one from Neu-Doenhof, knowing that G-Rs always traveled in groups. Unfortunately, it was the weekend so the historical societies were closed and the libraries, open for only half a day, one helpful and one not so much, I was able to copy material out of family files, H.S. year books, and pick-up a phone directory from one of these counties which included dozens of G-R names. It is amazing that these small counties still locally produce phone books for their neighbors whether they have landlines or not.
Finally, my destination, Bethlehem, Penn., and the Bethlehem Conference on Moravian History and Music. At this conference I had the opportunity to meet with the Moravian archivists from around the world but the ones that particularly caught my interest was the delegation from Hernhutt, Germany. There reside the documents from the period of time when the Moravian pastors from Sarepta provided religious leadership to the Volga German colonies from the time of the settlement until the early 1800. Their reports have been preserved and will be researched by village/pastor name at no charge. The Moravians, I learned, were/are masters at documentation.
I try to find and have translated one document each year. This year’s piece confirms once and for are that Neu-Doenhof was founded in 1857 not 1863 as has always been thought and therefore there should be an 1857 census archived somewhere. It also names the industries in Neu-Doenhof starting in the 1880s and going into the Soviet period.
Lee Ann Schlager, Village Coordinator
Neu Laub 2016 VC Annual Report
The Family Lists for Neu Tarlyk, 1920, Dinkel and Kukkus Village, 1920 have been purchased and are being translated. This info will be available later this spring.
Numerous Birth, Marriage, Death records for Laub, Straub, Warenburg and Dinkel are being translated and will be available through AHSGR.org
Warenburg and Lauwe Family lists were translated and available after the
2016 AHSGR convention.
Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Neu Messer 2016 VC Annual Report
During 2016 I answered several requests for information on Neu Messer, and was able to help many of those individuals with their research.
Two Messer / Neu Messer Newsletters were sent out during 2016; one in April, and the other in October. I attended the AHSGR Convention in Concord, CA in July and one of the evenings the Messer and Neu Messer descendants got together for Dinner. We had a great time sharing pictures, stories, and other information.
In August I took part in Brent Mai’s Volga Bergseite Tour, which included a visit to nearly 30 Bergseite colonies. It was a very well organized trip and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to visit Neu Messer, but I was able to talk to a German Russian descendant who used to teach school in Neu Messer. She says the village still exists and is in relatively good condition.
Messer descendants have been making contributions to a fund to acquire additional Messer and Neu Messer records from the Russian Archives. We were able to acquire the 1917 Neu Messer Family List. I had it translated, and it has now been published by AHSGR, and is available for purchase.
The Messer / Neu Messer Distribution/Mailing List continues to grow and now includes nearly 70 individuals. The Messer / Neu Messer database also continues to grow and now has over 12,700 names of Messer and Neu Messer colonists and their descendants.
Mike Meisinger
Village Coordinator for Neu Messer
Neu-Moor 2016 VC Annual Report
Neu-Moor (Russian name Pogranichny), was a “grand-daughter” colony, 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.
Very little information is available on Neu-Moor. I have not had anyone seeking information on this colony this past year.
Due to poor vision, I am unable to continue as village coordinator for Neu-Moor
Irma A. Waggoner, V.C.
Neu-Schilling I & Neu-Schilling II 2016 VC Annual Report
Neu-Schilling I was located about 95 miles southeast of Saratov, and about
25 miles south of Krasny-Kut. The daughter colony was founded in 1855.
Neu-Schilling II was located about 5 miles southeast of Neu-Schilling I, and was founded about 1861. Church records for these two villages are at the Russian Archives in Saratov, and consist of births for 1871-1921, and 1901-1921. There is also supposed to be a census containing founders of village.
During 2016 I received no emails for these two villages. The primary means of communication for things related to these villages are through the Schilling website: http://www.schillinggr.org/
Gary Martens
Village Coordinator for Neu-Schilling I & Neu-Schilling II
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Neu Tarlyk 2016 VC Annual Report
The Family Lists for Neu Tarlyk, 1920, Dinkel and Kukkus Village, 1920 have been purchased and are being translated. This info will be available later this spring.
Numerous Birth, Marriage, Death records for Laub, Straub, Warenburg and Dinkel are being translated and will be available through AHSGR.org
Warenburg and Lauwe Family lists were translated and available after the
2016 AHSGR convention.
Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Neu-Weimar 2016 VC Annual Report
Neu-Weimar was a daughter colony founded in 1861 by people from the villages of Galka, Stephan, Mueller, Schwab and Dobrinka, all of which are part of the Lower Volga Village Project.
The only church records available are marriages for 1894-1895. There is an 1857 census of original settlers in the village. In researching people from this village, there are frequently marriages with people from other daughter colonies in the Pallasowka Kanton of Samara Province.
During 2016, I had several emails with people concerning people from Neu-Weimar, and spent considerable time trying to find the origin of spouses who came from other villages.
Gary Martens
VC for Neu-Weimar
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Norka 2016 VC Annual Report
American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
(AHSGR) Norka, Saratov Province, Russia
Respectfully submitted on January 1, 2017 by:
Steve Schreiber, Norka Village Coordinator for AHSGR steven.schreiber@gmail.com
Louis Schleuger, Norka Database and Census Records Coordinator ohashi70@gmail.com
Our primary goals are to document the history of Norka and to provide research assistance to descendants of the people who lived in this colony.
In 2016, we 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 941 people following the page from the USA, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru and the United Arab Emirates. This is an increase of 179 people from December of 2015.
http://www.facebook.com/norka.russia
An updated Norka website was developed and launched in 2016. The site can be found here:
The website contains over 360 pages of information about this colony.
Judy Wiese has kindly assisted as the website editor.
Steve Schreiber attended the AHSGR Convention in Concord, California and a Norka Village meeting was held at the hotel. Approximately 30 people attended this gathering. The documentary “A Passage in Time – The Norka Film” premiered at the convention. Many thanks to Sherry Loos Pawelko and AHSGR staff for their efforts to complete this long-awaited project.
Steve is also serving as the AHSGR Oregon Chapter President and Interim Director of the Center for Volga German Studies (CVGS) at Concordia University.
Norka Communion Register Acquisition Project
The CVGS initially submitted an order to obtain copies of the 3 Norka family registers covering the following years:
1834-1845
1846-1860
1876-1890
Subsequently, we learned that the Russian archives will not allow the 1846-1860 register to be copied due to its fragile condition. We have attempted to make the argument that creating a digital image of each page is the best way to preserve the book. We are disappointed that the archive has not agreed with us, but we will keep trying to convince them.
We made arrangements to acquire another register that covers the time period from 1891-1905. This book contains over 650 pages of family information and we’ve received all the available images from this book. Sadly, some of the original pages from this register appear to have been lost or removed over time.
We are very excited to let you know that the remaining two books (1834-1845 and 1876-1890) have been digitized by the Russian archivists and received at the CVGS!
Dr. Brent Mai is currently translating the 1891-1905 register. Please be patient as these books have many detailed entries and the translation work takes a lot of time.
Those who contribute $200 or more will automatically receive a copy of the English translation for each of the 3 registers, once completed. Donations can be made online here:
http://www.cu-portland.edu/give-cvgs
Norka Database Project
The Norka Database Project continues to grow as more Norka descendants contact us and request our assistance in finding their ancestors. We had 63 requests during 2016.
The Norka Database contains over 50,107 individuals (an increase of 12,679 from last year) 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.
Norka Census Records
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 cross-referencing of the families listed in the Norka 1767 through 1857 censuses is progressing slowly, but well. In the cross-referencing work, errors were noted on Dr. Pleve’s charts listed in the Norka Database and within the censuses concerning family members’ marriages, the number of children and their linkages with other families. Part of the linkage effort includes the lineage of females when they married since Dr. Pleve did not include that lineage 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, Urbach and Schleuger databases are still work in progress.
Obermunjor 2016 VC Annual Report
I have received several requests this year from Germany, Russia, South America and the United States. I have updated my website for Obermunjor and continue to add what information I have to the site as it becomes available. The History of Louis written by Olga Litzenberger has been added to my website and AHSGR has also printed this article in the Journal. You can reach the site by this address: https://www.volgagerman.net/obermunjorrussia
This year I had received about 100 requests for information dealing with my various villages, about 1/2 of these were for Obermunjou. Some were people from Germany, some from Russia, but the majority was people having questions about their families who settled in this area of Ellis County, Kansas.
Items that we know that are available for this village are:
Engels: Church books on births:1821-1835, 1849-1866; Marriages & Deaths: 1821-1826; Deaths 1849-1856
Saratov: Church books 1802-1921; Communion Records 1853, 1855, 1856, 1858-1861, and Census 1834
Samara: Births 1875, 1880, 1881, 1889, 1897, 1806, 1909; Marriages 1875, 1880, 1889, 1893, 1914; Deaths 1908, 1914; and Census records for the years 1850 & 1857.
Volgograd: Has no records for Obermunjou
No Family lists books are available on Obermunjou
History of Obermunjou – I was able to hire Olga Litzenbeger to write the History of Obermunjou. It is about 18 pages long and covers:
1. Geographic Location
2. Brief Settlement History
3. Schools and Instruction
4. Denominational Faith of the Community and its Main Aspects
5. The Parish
6. Church Construction Dates and Architectural Characteristics
7. Population Numbers
8. From the History of the Church Community and the Parish
9. Clergy of the Katharinenstadt Parish Whom Served in Obermunjou
10. Partial List of Clergy of the Parish of Obermunjou
11. The Village Today
12. Archival Sources
13. An Interesting Archival Document
14. Obermunjou in the Press
I have given AHSGR to reprint this in the upcoming Journal hopefully in the Spring or Summer issue. Olga also sent me photos that I hope will be used with the article. I would like to also use this as a Chapter presentation.
Database: My database at this time contain about 103,582 names. Not all these are from Obermunjou, many are from the other villages that I work as Village Coordinator, and all these names connect to Ellis County, Kansas one way or another.
Obituary Files & Memorial Cards: I maintain at this time about three filing cabinets containing obituaries, mostly group by family names. I have many memorial cards, some going back to the original settlers that came from Russian to Ellis County, Kansas. Many of these are in the old German.
Records On Hand: Listed below are the church records and census’ that I have on hand:
1. Dr. Igor Pleve Books
2. 1834 Census – Collected by families, not complete
3. 1850 Census
4. 1857 Census
5. Births: 1821 – 1834 (Not Complete); 1855-1866 (Not Complete) 1871-1911 (Not Complete); 1875 Complete; 1880 Complete; 1881 Complete; 1889 Complete; 1894-1918 (Not Complete)
6. Marriages: 1839 (Complete); 1840 (Complete); 1850-1858 (Complete); 1860-1864; 1874(Not Complete); 1875 (Complete); 1876-1911 (No Complete).
7. Deaths: 1850-1855 (Not Complete); 1856-1876 (Not Complete) 1892-1907 (Not Complete); 1907-1918 (Not Complete)
WEBSITE:
I maintain a website, www.volgagerman.net . Here I list all the villages that I am currently working as VC and some extra villages that I have developed for friends who have no websites. I plan to redo the website this year.
Periodicals:
I continue to look for books that might be of some use for research on the Volga Germans. The most recent additions are:
1. Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis, Vol. 1, 3, 4, and 5. By Ella Gieg. This is a five volume set the covers the South of Hesse in Germany. It consists of those people who left that area to go to American and Russian. Each volume covers a certain district in that area. The web address for those who might be interested is: http://gendi.biz/shop/index.php?language=en
2. “Gedenkbuch Kasachstan”, by Michael Wanner, published in 2015. This book contains many lists of people who were deported to Kasachstan
3. Volk Auf Dem Weg
CONVENTIONS:
I was not able to attend the convention this past year.
NEW PROJECTS:
1. Our local Sunflower Chapter purchased the 1834 Census for Obermunjou, which we have received. It was translated by Mila Kortnikov and I am now editing it for publication by AHSGR. The Sunflower Chapter will share the sale of this document. Whatever AHSGR sells they will be able to keep the proceeds and the same with our Chapter. A few of us from AHSGR have set up a procedure for getting these documents out to researchers. What the AHSGR website for announcement on new material.
Submitted by Kevin Rupp, AHSGR VC, January 22, 2017
Kevin Rupp
During 2016 over a dozen requests were answered.
Many of the requests were from Argentina for family information I was able to help most of them. Some from the US and Germany I was able to help fill in family lines back to the original immigrant ancestors in Russia.
Oberst. Herschfeld, Schwindt, Dechant[Degand}, Jacobs, Mellinger, Heit, Burgardt
Donation to AHSGR of Facius List [in German script] of immigrants to Russia during the period 13.11.1765 – 18.02.1766 from the Frankfort on Main area–not translated. An alphabetized list of name, age, religion and village of origin were translated.
Also donated to AHSGR are the original and translated copy of 1834 Hildman and 1834 Goebel census’.
Respectfully submitted,
Rosemary Larson
AHSGR VC Pfeifer
Reinwald 2016 VC Annual Report
There have been a few new members to AHSGR for the village of Reinwald. In Sept. the Sheboygan Historical Society was a sight for a conference with the Center of Volga German Studies of Concordia University “Celebrating the 250th year of Volga German history”. Seating was limited to 130 and tickets sold out fast and there was a waiting list for any available tickets. Brent Mai did several presentations as well as others that had connections to Sheboygan and some of the villages around Reinwald. There was a reunion of several Ruppel and Markgraf family members that was held Friday night before the conference ever began. There were several that had prepared exhibits including maps of Reinwald and a few family charts from the village. David Markgraf was selling copies of his book about the Markgraf family. Since the conference several new people have been added to the Reinwald face book group. Discussion on the page has been very active. Many of those that attended the Sheboygan conference have expressed an interest in the annual convention that will be held in Milwaukee.
Susie Weber Hess
VC for Reinwald
Reinhard 2016 VC Annual Report
There have been no village inquiries this year for Reinhard. There are 3 members that signed up this year and are researching Reinhard.
Current records that I have are the 1798, 1850, 1857 Reinhard Censuses. I also have the First Settlers List for Reinhard. I have access to the following through our chapter: First Settlers List (all volumes), Transport List, volume 2 1798 Census. Many records regarding Germans from Russia who settled in Fresno County, CA.
Regarding my own research, I have been able to follow many of my Reinhard ancestor’s back to Germany.
What has happened, any changes in membership, inquiries, new material, new databases, new records, any accomplishments, plans for next year, etc.
Brenna Stokes,
VC Chair for Reinhard Village
brennastokes@gmail.com
Rohleder 2016 VC Annual Report
I have not received any emails inquiring on the village of Rohleder this year.
This past year I have totally revamped my website and I still need to add a number of materials and list to the site. I have added a few new extra pages for friends. You can reach the site by this address: https://www.volgagerman.net/rohleder-russia .
I did attend the 250th Celebration that Brent Mai had in Hays, Kansas in June which covered those Catholic colonies that celebrated 250 years. These included Graf, Katharinenstadt, Rohleder, Rohleder, Louis Herzog, Schuck and Volmer. The event was very well attended.
At the current time my database contains 103,582 people from all my villages.
Kevin Rupp
VC for Rohleder, Russia
Rosenfeld (Norki) Am Jeruslan 2016 VC Annual Report
Roger Burbach/Burbank. New VC for Rosenfeld Am Jeruslan and Langenfeld. I have nothing for these Villages other then 1857 Census. I found these Villages doing my wife’s side. Her Bastron’s were in Frank 1857 and Langenfeld 1857 census. Her Mohr’s were in Norka and Rosenfeld 1857 census.
I hope to find more descendants from these Villages and can in the future order some docs from these Villages. I have been emailing with Mila on what is available. I see some confusion with this Rosenfeld and Norka and other Villages called Rosenfeld. This Rosenfeld is also known as Norki.
Rothammel 2016 VC Annual Report
We have been able to help almost everyone who contacts us. We have entered the information from all the surname charts we hold into our data base. We can take many researchers back to their first ancestors who settled in Russia.
We were able to secure copies of a great many Russian records. We’ve given the copies in Russian to AHSGR headquarters for safe keeping. The information from the translated copies has been entered into our data base. These include the Rothammel 1834, 1857, and 1888 census records, birth records from 1852-1910 (1892-1902 are missing), marriage records from 1846-1907, and death records from 1849-1918. We also have a list compiled in 1916 of families who moved to America. This list is very helpful in filling in gaps.
We are very grateful for the help Tanja Schell gave to the translation project. She has made many contacts in Russia and has been able to help them and add additional information to our data base. Our goal is to build a file containing descendants of everyone having lived in Rothammel.
We want to thank those researchers who have shared their files with us. The information found in one’s files might help other researchers complete theirs. We are also grateful for the additional Russian records individual researchers have given us.
We are trying to secure additional information from the Russian archives which will help researchers complete their files.
Nick and Barbara Bretz
Not much has happened with Shäfer. There has been one inquiry earlier this year, but was not able to help much. The inquirer was looking for information between 1860-1900. I suggested he look at the Russian archives.
I have records for the 1798, 1850, and 1857 Censuses. I also have a partial printout of the First Settler’s List. I do have access to the full First Settler’s List, Transport List, 2 volume 1798 censu, and many records regarding Germans from Russia that immigrated to Fresno County, CA through my chapter.
For personal accomplishments, I have been able to trace many of my ancestor’s lines back to Germany from Schäfer.
Brenna Stokes
VC Chair for Schäfer
brennastokes@gmail.com
Rosenberg 2016 VC Annual Report
Rosenberg has seen very little activity this year. I have provided information on a number of families to enquirers, and in particular on the Schneider, Kuxhausen, Reizenstein, Herdt, Zeigler and Rupp families. John Groh provided me with a small piece of new information about the Kisselmans but otherwise here has been no new information received this year.
I did receive requests regarding the Keller and Reimer families but neither of these families lived in Rosenberg.
Professor Richard McGregor
Emeritus Professor of Music
University of Cumbria
Tel: 01524-735011
Mob: 0782-4616978
email: richard.mcgregor@cumbria.ac.uk
or: richardmcgregor1@yahoo.co.uk
Schaffhausen 2016 VC Annual Report
Although I have had a quiet year compared to many fellow Village coordinators I am glad to report that I received 4 requests for information, including 1 surname enquiry regarding the village of Schaffhausen aka Michaelis, Wolkowo and Volkovo. I also managed to establish contact with some relatives and fellow descendants of Schaffhausen. This was a significant improvement on the past few years and has been very encouraging.
I have followed the various discussions on the availability of village census records on the AHSGR site and occasionally scan Wolgadeutsche.net – whose members appear to have access to much better records than I do.
Hopefully the momentum within the AHSGR, CVGS and international collaboration is trending towards increased availability of census / village records. This would be especially helpful for Schaffhausen which to the best of my knowledge does not have a First Settlers List. This is probably because the “Schaffhausen colonists” initially wintered in other villages after arrival in Saratov before founding the original Schaffhausen inland near the Little Karaman river in 1767. There is also a large gap in 19th century census / village records.
In 1770 (the same year as Captain James Cook was busy charting the east coast of Australia) Schaffhausen and another 7 colonies were relocated to the northern stretch of the eastern Volga riverbank. I sailed past this area on a Volga cruise over a year ago and must admit the area is quite scenic and would have been an improvement on the original steppe site which had poor soil.
Being located in Brisbane, Australia I have only managed to attend one AHSGR Annual Convention but hope to get to a few more in the future.
Regards
Jim Parsonage
VC Schaffhausen
Schönchen, Samara, Volga 2016 VC Annual Report
During 2016 a few queries from new researchers were received and answered and contact and collaboration with others continued.
In July I attended the AHSGR convention in Concord, California. There were five attendees at the Area 6 gathering. (Catholic colonies of Kantons Krasnojar, Marxstadt and Tonkoschorovka). In October I attended the Kansas Round-Up of Chapters of AHSGR. Several descendants of Schoenchen immigrants were also in attendance.
I continue to add information to the database, and search for information on origins, immigration, naturalization, etc.
2017 will mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of Schoenchen, and I understand AHSGR will be publishing a translation of the Schoenchen
1920 family list.
Respectfully submitted,
Denise Grau
Co-Village Coordinator for Schoenchen
Schuck 2016 VC Annual Report
I received a number a queries this year; but I think the majority of them were all looking for the information contained in the years after 1850 or 1857.
I always try to assist emails I receive.
Cathy Hawinkels
Also, Village coordinator for Schuck and Volmer
Schilling 2016 VC Annual Report
The most significant event in 2016 was the acquisition of family information from the Schilling 1881 Family List, which are family group sheets that contain information on people living in Schilling between 1881 and 1894.
The reports come from the Russian Archives in Engels, and the purchases are a bargain because the archives charges a single 1 year amount for a search, then an amount for each page of information in the report. Reports have been purchased for the following surnames: Brumm, Drumheller, Felsing, Harres, Leterich, Mende, Schadt, Schreiber, Strackbein, Worster, Maul, Luft, Weber and Schmidt. There are a total of 47 surnames found in the Family List.
There have been over a dozen inquires during 2016 from several countries.
There were 10 people who contributed towards the purchase of information from the 1881 Family List. They received copies of information for specific surnames.
The Pleve’s created surnames charts for the following surnames from Schilling: Damm, Filbert, Kaufmann, Keller, Kraus, Roh, Roth, Selheim and Sinner, and copies usually available.
In 2017, I will continue to purchase reports for individual surnames from the 1881 Family List. It is by far the best and most economical way of connected people living in the 1890’s to people in the 1857 census.
The Schilling website is found at: http://www.schillinggr.org/ There is also a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/Schilling-115734748455129/ There is a mailing list for Schilling, and a subscription can be started here:
http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/RUS/RUS-SARATOV-SCHILLING.html
Gary Martens
VC for Schilling
gpmartens@gmail.com <mailto:gpmartens@gmail.com>
Seewald 2016 VC Annual Report
We have been able to help almost everyone who contacts us. We have entered the information from all the surname charts we hold into our data base. We can take many researchers back to their first ancestors who settled in Russia.
We were able to secure copies of a great many Russian records. We’ve given the copies in Russian to AHSGR headquarters for safe keeping. The information from the translated copies has been entered into our data base. These include the Seewald 1834, 1857, and 1888 census records, birth records from 1852-1910 (1892-1902 are missing), marriage records from 1846-1907, and death records from 1849-1918. We also have a list compiled in 1916 of families who moved to America. This list contains everyone in the particular household, not just those leaving Seewald so is very helpful in filling in gaps.
We are very grateful for the many hours Tanja Schell gave to the translation project. She has also made many contacts in Russia and has been able to help them and add additional information to our data base. Our goal is to build a file containing descendants of everyone having lived in Seewald.
We are trying to secure additional information from the Russian archives which will help researchers complete their files.
Nick and Barbara Bretz
Shcherbakovka 2016 Village Report
It’s been another fairly slow year with only a few inquiries. Several new members joining AHSGR have specified their interest in Shcherbakovka, but most have not responded back when I contacted them. A couple of Ger-Rus individual researchers have purchased copies of my extractions of the Lutheran Church in Shcherbakovka and “headquarters” in Lincoln has a copy also.
I appreciate all the work that Kathy Bartels Stahlman has done to document & share her trip to the Volga area and particularly the Lower Volga Villages this year. She did such a good job with photos and posting a journal of her travels, that I almost feel like I was there too. Thanks, Kathy.
We have quite a few Pleve charts for surnames coming from Shcherbakovka as well as the nearby 8 other Lutheran villages. As I went through the church records that I purchased, I found a few corrections and quite a few additions that Pleve missed as he went through the records to create what we call “Pleve Charts”. I finally got those corrections sent to “headquarters” this year in hopes of helping others who have purchased these Pleve charts. If you have purchased Pleve Charts for any of the following names, (and wish to have this additional info), please contact me and I will be happy to send you the corrections via email: Becker, Dahlinger, Ehrlich, Haffner, Hanschu, Kraft, Laubhan, Meier, Oblander, Reisig, Steinert, Stricker, Wasenmiller/ Wasamueller, Winter, and Zwetzig.
I still remain hopeful that we will be able to obtain other village records from the archives in Russia with the bequest by Timothy Montania. He left a large sum to AHSGR several years ago specifically for purchasing and transcribing records for Shcherbakovka (firstly) and Dreispitz (secondly). To the best of my knowledge, very little has been purchased. We are anxiously awaiting any records that are available.
Janet Laubhan Flickinger
V.C. for Shcherbakovka
Stahl am Karaman 2016 VC Annual Report
Stahl am K., which was founded on July 9, 1766, was one of the colonies founded by the Russian crown. It was located on the Wiesenseite (east side of the Volga) southeast of Saratov along the Greater Karaman River. One interesting aspect of Stahl is that there was a large influx of colonists from other colonies, such as Urbach, in the 1780s, which influx probably related to the relaxation of restrictions on private colonies. Another aspect is that many Stahl colonists moved to daughter colonies east of the Volga and in the Omsk area in the mid- to late-19th century. In fact, the Stahl family, after which Stahl was named, moved to Alexanderdorf in 1848, after which date Stahl no longer had any Stahls.
For Stahl am K., I have the 1767 First Settlers List, which is published in Volume 4 of Dr. Pleve’s book “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767,” and the complete 1798 Census, 1811 Census (partial), 1850 Census, 1857 Census, and 1896 Census (partial). In addition, the 1835 Census, which has been obtained by the Center for Volga German Studies, is in the process of being transcribed/translated and should be available later this year. The following church records are available for Stahl am K.:
Engels Archive — baptisms 1829-65; marriages 1829-33; deaths 1829-33.
Saratov Archive — baptisms 1858-1868; marriages 1858-67; deaths 1858-88, 1912.
In addition, there are family or farmstead lists from the 1880s.
In 2016, I had numerous inquiries about Stahl families, including Justus, Kempf, Krutsch, and Martin, and was able to help most of them with their research. I even had one inquiry from South America seeking to establish connections between Stahl families that settled in the U.S. and those that settled in Brazil. For 2017, one Stahl researcher has scheduled a worldwide reunion of the Justus and Krutsch families, which will take place in Ladysmith, WI, on August 12, 2017.
In recent years, I have put substantial effort into encouraging and assisting Stahl family researchers to do Y-DNA testing to provide genetic confirmation of family relationships shown by Russian records. One successful test with which I assisted positively confirmed that two branches of the Wolf family, dating back to a common ancestor born in 1745 in Schleesen, Kursachsen, are genetically related (i.e., share a common male ancestor). I am still hoping to arrange tests for other branches of the Wolf family but this test of two branches already indicates that all Wolfs from Stahl are genetically related (i.e., descended from a common male ancestor). Within the past year, I have also been working to arrange Y-DNA testing of different branches of the Justus, Krutsch, and Martin families. A positive match for the Martin families would prove a genetic connection between the Martins in Stahl and the Martins in Urbach, which separated before 1800.
While most of my DNA research has been with Y-DNA testing, which tests only male lines, I have also done other, broader DNA testing (e.g., Geno 2.0 through National Geographic). In 2016, I was contacted by a Stahl researcher who had noticed a genetic connection between me and her in a DNA database. After comparing information on our family lines (i.e., church and census records), we were able to establish a connection between our Krutsch ancestors in the 1800s. That was a first for me, especially because I was not aware that I had a Krutsch line until I received that inquiry.
David F. Schmidt,
VC Chair for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman
Email: schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com
Straub 2016 VC Annual Report
I have had inquires on the following Straub families: opp, Lung, Nies, Rudolph, Schafer, Schwabenland.
This has been a very good year for Straub. I have received many Straub records from the archive. Thanks to Dodie Rotherham and Kevin Rupp for getting the Straub records
from the Engels archive. Thanks also to the George Lauren Foundation for the funding to get these records.
The Straub 1834 Census is now available for purchase at the AHSGR Bookstore.
Straub confirmations from 1847 to 1868 have been translated. These records are being formatted and edited now. They should be available soon for purchase at the AHSGR Bookstore. These confirmation records have information on 636 people, their birth date and their father’s name. The birth dates start in 1831. Getting these confirmation records has filled in a lot of missing genealogy information.
Other Straub records have been received: Straub births 1847 to 1868. These Straub birth records were listed under Warenburg records but are from Straub: 1859 to 1873. These Straub birth records are being translated.
My cousins, Leroy and Linda Schafer, purchased some Bopp and Schwabenland birth, death and confirmation records from the Engels archive. There were other people listed on those records. I have information now on 601 Straub deaths. These death records are not complete but have the death date, age at death, village if not born in Straub, and parent’s names if the death was a child.
by Sharon White, Straub VC
Straub 2016 VC Annual Report
The Family Lists for Neu Tarlyk, 1920, Dinkel and Kukkus Village, 1920 have been purchased and are being translated. This info will be available later this spring.
Numerous Birth, Marriage, Death records for Laub, Straub, Warenburg and Dinkel are being translated and will be available through AHSGR.org
Warenburg and Lauwe Family lists were translated and available after the
2016 AHSGR convention.
Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Susannental 2016 VC Annual Report
This year has seen more requests for assistance than usual. I have been able to assist 5 persons with information about their families from Susannental.
3 persons requested assistance, but their families immigrated from Germany and not Russia although they had surnames from the village.
The Susannental data base now consists of 13020 individuals. Our pre immigration data base consists of 3728 individuals.
These records are available for Susannental:
1st settler list
1798 census
1816 census
1834 census
1857 census
Personal family book records have been obtained for 1 surname.
There is a website, mail list, Facebook page and Facebook group for the village.
Some Information for the villages of Kind and Meinhard is also part of the records as there was a lot of intermarriage between these villages.
Kerry Thompson
VC for Susannental
Teplitz/Töplitz 2016 VC Annual Report
I haven’t worked on Teplitz/Töplitz that much this year, but I have one new member for Bergdorf and Marienberg last month, who also had family in Töplitz, so I was very pleased to see that, and am adding those names to the village.
I’ve had no requests for help this year for Töplitz, but maybe next year will be different.
*Sylvia M. Hertel*
*Village Coordinator*
*Teplitz/Töplitz*/*by the Black Sea*
Ukraine Colonies 2016 VC Annual Report
I have had no inquiries regarding the 20 Chortitza, Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine Colonies this past year. All inquiries this past year were for the Molotschna, Taurida, Ukraine Colonies.
Karen Suderman Penner, VC for Chortitza, Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine Colonies
I received a number a queries this year; but I think the majority of them were all looking for the information contained in the years after 1850 or 1857.
I always try to assist emails I receive.
Cathy Hawinkels
Village coordinator for Schuck and Volmer
Volhynia 2016 VC Annual Report
There were four inquiries for 2016. During the year I have been working on compiling a list of Volhynian & Polish villages (and their alternate spellings) that are being researched by members, using nine different map sources to verify the names. Although I was unable to attend the AHSGR Concord Convention in California, the list, to be added to the Heritage Hall display, was sent along with Heritage Hall binder updates. An AHSGR member, Victor Gess, ably provided coverage for Area 8. I did attend the SGGEE Convention in Calgary to hear Dr. M. Kostiuk speak about “German Communities in Volhynian Cities” and “Volhynian Church and Religious Life of Colonists.” Tour Guide Alex Brzheitsky presented two sessions “Tracing Your Ancestral Roots in the Volhyian Archives” and “A Photo Journey of Our Ancestral Homeland” to prepare travellers for a trip to their ancestral homeland.
Mabel Kiessling
Village Coordinator for Volhynia & Polish Volhynia
Prepared by Michael Fyler Village Coordinators:
Michael Fyler, Walter database
Mary Jane Bolton, Researcher and Facebook Moderator Jean Roth, Historian
Inventory:
Censuses: 1798, 1834, 1857, Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Vol. IV Volgograd-Walter Church Records:
Births- 1839-1900, 1903-1913
Marriages- 1839-1854, 1894, 1895
Deaths- 1839-1870
Walter Class Register of Zemstvo School 1884-1889, 1891-1893, 1896-1898, 1900-1901 Extracts from the Family list on the military duty Tagenrog Jeisk Walter Related 1879-1885 Related Births/Christenings, Marriages and Deaths Brunnental 1870-1884 Walter Related Communion Register
2016 was a busy year for the Walter Village Coordinators. First, we were very pleased to receive the Walter 1834 and 1857 censuses with the generous support of many donors including the Chris and Mary Mills memorial fund, Mr. and Mrs. Byron Wagner and members of Walter family.
We received approximately 42 inquiries from members of AHSGR and nonmembers who we then try to recruit to becoming members of AHSGR. Mary Jane does an incredible job assisting these folks and often gleans useful information for the Walter database.
Michael Fyler and Mary Jane Bolton attended the 2016 AHSGR Convention in Concord, California, attending the Village Coordinators meeting and Frank Canton meeting in addition to the rewarding time spent with attendees researching their Walter roots.
The Walter, Russia Facebook page continues to grow with plenty of interesting information contributed by Maggie Hein and Mary Jane Bolton. Jean continues to work on confirming origin locations for the original settlers of Walter.
We are currently working on cross referencing the new 1834 and 1857 censuses with the database which enables us to merge and connect families at last. Maggie Hein sends us on occasion valuable data for folks that moved to the village of Brunnental gleaned from the Brunnental Communion Register and the Walter related Tagenrog Jeisk records.
The long tedious process of indexing and entering the Volgograd-Walter church records into the Walter database is a continued labor of love. We are truly thankful for this information and all who made it possible to obtain and pay for these documents.
The Walter database includes 57,075 individuals and it continues to grow as individuals are added from the Volgograd-Walter church records, obituaries, Brunnental Communion Records, Tagenrog Jeisk records and new AHSGR members.
Michael Fyler
Warenburg 2016 VC Annual Report
by Sharon White, Warenburg VC
I have had inquires on the following Warenburg families: Becker, Constanz, Deobald, Diener, Eisner, Kinzel, Kisling, Lorenz, Molko, Muller, Nickel, Schiffman, Schmidt, Stumpf, Trippel, Wagenleitner, Werner.
I have received 1885 Warenburg Family Lists from the archive for these families: Horch and Lorenz
The entire 1874 Warenburg Family List is now available for purchase at the AHSGR Bookstore.
It has been a very good year for Warenburg. Many more Warenburg records have been received from the archive. Thanks to Dodie Rotherham and Kevin Rupp for getting more Warenburg records from the archive. Thanks also to the George Lauren Foundation for the funding to get these records.
Warenburg marriages from 1826 to 1840 have been translated. They are being formatted and edited and should be for sale at the AHSGR Bookstore soon. There are 367 marriage records.
These are important as they are the only Warenburg marriage records at the Russian archive. Most of these marriage records contain the marriage date, ages of the bride and groom, father’s name, and village if not from Warenburg. There people from 20 other villages listed.
These Warenburg records were also received from the archive:
Warenburg births–1812 to 1825
Warenburg births–1826 to 1840
Warenburg births–1849 to 1856
Warenburg births–1862 to 1869
Warenburg confirmations–1826 to 1851
Warenburg confirmations–1854 to 1892
Warenburg deaths–1826 to 1839
Translations on these Warenburg records will be done as quickly as possible.
Warenburg 2016 VC Annual Report
The Family Lists for Neu Tarlyk, 1920, Dinkel and Kukkus Village, 1920 have been purchased and are being translated. This info will be available later this spring.
Numerous Birth, Marriage, Death records for Laub, Straub, Warenburg and Dinkel are being translated and will be available through AHSGR.org
Warenburg and Lauwe Family lists were translated and available after the 2016 AHSGR convention.
Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.
Donita Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA
Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Yagodnaya Polyana, (Saratov, Volga) 2016 VC Annual Report
2016 Village Report for Yagodnaya Polyana The number of emails this past year has been fairly steady. Interestingly most of the requests/questions were about the Pfaffenroth family name and these requests came from Germany. More names have now been added to our database.
The newsletter continues to be sent out 4 times per year. The interest in the YP Facebook page continues to grow.
The CVGS sponsored “A Grand 250th Anniversary Get-Together” in Leavenworth, Washington, April 27 to 29, 2016. There was so much interest in the event registration ballooned to about 160 registered attendees coming from all over the US and Canada. It was a wonderful experience which focused on the founding colonists of Yagodnaya Polyana who left Germany late in the summer of 1766 to go to the steppes of Russia. Dr. Brent Mai and Dr. Richard Scheuerman were keynote speakers.
The photo album of YP colonists has been published and response has been wonderful. The basic criteria for the book were that the pictures must have been of people born in YP or its daughter colonies and the date of birth and death must be known. Submissions came from Russia and Germany. I would urge other coordinators to consider embarking on this type of project.
Marlene Michel
Village Coordinator for Yagodnaya Polyana