2017 VC Report - American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

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

Anton 2017 Village Report

I have had one inquiry for Anton on the Albrecht family.

Anton VC’s purchased Anton marriage records for the years 1834 to 1863. These records have been translated. There are 493 marriages. These include the names of the bride and groom, their ages, village, and parent’s names and date of marriage. The mother’s maiden name is important as these are not listed on the 1834 and 1857 Anton census records. 29 other villages are listed. Contact Anton VC’s for information.

Anton VC’s have the following EWZ records for Anton for these families: Engel, Ewig, Ganzhorn, Hahn, Kramer (2), Reth, Rothamel (2), Storck, and Weckesser (2). These records contain genealogy information: person’s name, date of birth, place of birth, spouse, parents, children, siblings.

33 Anton families went to Denmark before arriving in Anton. These families are listed in the Eichorn book, Die Einwanderung Deutscher Kolonisten nach Danemark und deren weitere Auswanderung nach Russland in den Jahren 1759-1766.

Anton VC’s want to purchase more Anton records from the Russian archive.

Sharon White

Anton VC

Alexanderdorf 2017 Village Report

Recently I accepted the position as Village Coordinator for these villages as they were not represented and I am fascinated by the Caucasus and German footprint (Alexanderdorf, North and South Caucasus, Blumenfeld, North Caucasus, Egenheim, North Caucasus, Emmas, North Caucasus, Johannesdorf, North Caucasus, Karlsruhe, North Caucasus, Katharinenfeld, North Caucasus, Nalchik, North Caucasus, Tiegenhoff, South Caucasus, Tilfis, South Caucasus). Numerous cultures and historical activities impacted the region, not an easy geographic area to study. I will have posters and binders prepared for the Kansas convention. Database has been created and entries updated.

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

The EWZ records are being researched as time allows, they are an exceptional source of information for many families and villages. The local Family History Library (FHL) is in possession of many valuable films. Resources at the FHL are presently being scanned which will enable researcher’s greater productivity.

I am purchasing resources as quickly as possible. I have some census records, numerous maps and publications. Caucasus records have yet to be located; times of strife in the Caucasus region resulted in records being misplaced.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I am sending village data to Diane Wilson at AHSGR; I encourage everyone to review this valuable resource periodically. Information is scanned and stored electronically; it does not have the potential to get lost as does paper.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

Awilovo 2017 Village Report

I was not contacted by anyone with ancestors from Awilovo. I am working with Kevin Rupp to have the few church records that have been found translated.

Kathy Stahlman, VC

Balzer 2017 Village Report

2017 was an incredible year for Balzer research. Due to the generous contributions of a very few researchers here and in Russia, we were able to obtain copies of all of the Communion records (family lists) from 1834 to 1906. With the exception of the 1906 records, all of the documents were written in German. In addition to the Communion records, we also received a copy of the 1897 census. This later document is written in Russia. Co-VC Dr. Darrell Weber has graciously taken on the Herculean task of getting the census translated.

Indices were made of the Family Lists and copies have been submitted to headquarters. Apparently, these are now available on line for review.

One newsletter was issued this year. I was not able to attend the convention.

There appears to be significant Balzer church records at the various archives in Russia, however, the cost of obtaining copies is too prohibitive. The church records cover the time from 1804-after 1920, which amounts to some 20 separate books.

Because of the time devoted to the new Russian records, the German Origins project for Balzer was put on temporary hold. Only one definite origin was confirmed (Maria Magdalena Dreudt). We expect to renew this research in 2018. To date, we have at least partial information on 90 of the original 105 founding families.

Inquiries were received from researchers in the United States, Germany, Argentina. and Russia, and I could fill most of their requests. Now that we have copies of later records, we have been able to complete ancestral charts for a few of these researchers. This includes Keller, Rockel, and Rohrig.

We do not anticipate receiving any new records from Russia in 2018, but one never knows. Not certain yet about attending the 2018 convention. Hoping new Facius-type records will be fund in Germany and available to us for further clues. A newsletter is also anticipated.

Wayne H. Bonner

Balzer Co-VC

Bangert 2017 Village Report

This has been a busy year for Laub and the Kukkus Kanton. During the past 3 years I was able to raise sufficient funds to purchase most of the records available for the villages in the Kanton. To date we have received records for the villages of Laub, Neu Laub, Jost, Lauwe, Dinkel, Straub, Warenburg, Bangert, Stahl am Tarlyk and Kukkus. Records are coming in very quickly and we are translating and preparing for sale through AHSGR. Translating is a slow process as records are old and many are in poor condition. All records are in either German, Russian or Latin script and some are almost impossible to read due to fading and the deteriorating condition of the records.

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Working with the Archives Committee of AHSGR our small work group has developed a standard template to be used for record translations and has set standards for translators for the Kukkus Kanton. The standards and templates originally developed for our Kanton are available and being used by other translators. The committee will provide the template and translator standards with any interested Village Coordinators.

We continue to have requests for assistance from Germany, the US and South America. Most requests have come through the Laub or German – Russia Connections Facebook pages. Also, DNA seems to be bringing more people to our pages and the current fascination with DNA seems to be promoting the family roots quest.

I traveled to Freson, CA in March and met many GR descendants from the Kukkus Kanton. It was a wonderful experience and I met several people with whom I had communicated for several years. I also had the opportunity to spend a full day in the chapter with some of the Fresno chapter volunteers. Great group of volunteers dedicated to our GR heritage. If you are in the Fresno area be sure to stop by and visit this incredible chapter. Wonderful research materials and volunteers to help with all your research needs.

As always, we will continue to purchase and translate records for the Kanton and hope to have many new records available for the AHSGR Convention in July in Hays, KS. We will also continue our out reach to GR’s and to our village descendants.

Finally, a special thank you to Kevin Rupp for all he has done to obtain the records for the Kukkus Kanton amid all the other records he is working on. Thanks also to Beth Davenport, VC Jost and Enders, Patricia Windecker, Co-Coordinator for 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. Additionally, thanks to Jim Weibert, Sacramento, CA for his fantastic work on formatting and indexing the records. All volunteered their time and talent for the Society. Thank you!

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Beideck Village Report 2017

I have worked with several families and provided some help. Not a lot of requests for Beideck. Sometimes when we are sent a message about somebody new who has joined we email them immediately but do not always get a response.; I have a complete listing of census records for beideck from 1775 to 1857 and some additional info on marriages up to 1900.

John Lauck [mailto:jdlauck23@gmail.com]

Blumenfeld 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool, all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Borodino 2017 Annual Report:

This year I fishiness 40 booklets that are from “A” to “Z” which covers the genealogy of the German-Russian colonists who began to settle in Borodino after 1812 to 2016. Included are maps, photographs, letters and history. At this time AHSGR has one set. I’ve never counted how many pages are involved.

There are additional pages that cover my mother’s (Lillian, nee Hein), Remmick’s parents Ludwig Hein b. 1885 Borodino and Christina Schweickert (Schweigert) b. 1885 Borodino. Most of this data can be found on my Borodino Web Site at http://www.remmick.org/Borodino.Bess.Genealogy/index.html. Some of the new data was added that can be found on other web sites. One booklet just has color photographs, generously sent to me by cousin Alfred Hein. Other generous people like Ingrid Reule has sent a lot of information to help fill in the missing pieces of many of the families. The history of Borodino proved to be just as interesting. There was a broad group of colonists who help make life quite colorful and sometimes not appreciated by the Lutheran ministry. The old Lutheran Church that held 350 still stands in the center of today’s Russian village but not as a church. One would describe many Borodinoians as “free thinkers”. In 1940 the German-Russians who had not fled the communist rule were told to pack their things and the Russian soldiers escorted them to the Russian borders…. They were told they were no longer welcome in Russia. German soldiers escorted them to places in Poland and Germany. Descendants can be found all around the world from Siberia Russia to China, USA, Canada, S. America, even Ireland. I hope you enjoy my work as much as I have collecting it.

Sincerely yours, Judy A. Remmick-Hubert (remmick@aol.com)

Dietel 2017 Annual Report

Surname requests I worked with this year were Bickart (Bichert, Bickert, etc; Pickard, Pichard, etc), Busch, Frank, Pitsch, Reichel, and Reichert.

I attended the 250 Anniversary for Kautz, Dietel, and Kratzke in Billings, Montana in April; but unfortunately, was unable to attend the AHSGR convention in Wisconsin.

The Dietel Facebook page now has 213 members and growing!

The Dietel database has 10,850 individuals now. I still have nearly 3,400 births (1880’s to 1911) and just over 18,000 deaths (1893-1903; 1905-1910) to enter. Karen Hergett continues to work entering the censuses. Many thanks to Michael Frank for translating ALL of these records!!

Thank you to Kevin Rupp who has sent the following information to Mila and we are awaiting her cost estimate.

Co-VC Dietel Village, Don Soeken, has started a fundraising campaign to buy these records.

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Bouton

Co-VC Dietel Village

Dinkel 2017 Village Report

I had five people seek information. I was able to help 3 of them. Lincoln sent me about 6 names reg. info about Dinkel. I had 4 no responses, and 2 stated that they could not start anything right now. Oh, well, maybe this year. I still have the 1798,1834, 1850, and 1857 Census’s.

Leroy Nikolaisen

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Doenhof 2015 Village Report

I had several inquiries for Doenhof families in 2015. Researchers were seeking information for the following families: Schriener, Behm/Boehm, Boltz, Altergott, Keller, Kraus, Kaiser, Frank, Maier, Jaeckel, Robertus, Gomer, and Rutz.

I was able to help with information for most of the families, but some were for the missing time period for records between 1857 and the late 1800’s. Along with census records, church records, and a few other resources, such as Ancestry, I was able to fill in a few missing family members after 1857. I agree with other coordinators that while Ancestry and FamilySearch websites can be useful, one must use information found there with caution and verify and document any information used, particularly with individual family trees.

My resources include:

1. Census records for Doenhof for 1775/1798, 1834, 1857

2. Vol. 1&2-Volga German Settlers Identified in Isenburg and German Church records compiled by Herb Femling and Wayne Bonner

3. St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church records – Windsor, CO -from 1909-1992. Many Doenhof immigrant families settled in the Windsor, CO area.

4. Naturalization Records of Immigration from Russia in CO – Vol. 1

5. Some birth, death, and marriage records for Peace Lutheran Church in Sterling, CO. Peace Lutheran Church was the first German speaking church in the Sterling area and included many German-Russian immigrants.

6. Individual family group sheets and genealogies for Doenhof families that I have collected or have been shared from Doenhof descendants and researchers.

I have also done DNA testing for myself through both 23andMe and Ancestry websites and have downloaded those results to Gedmatch.com. Through those results I have made several contacts with genetic relatives with family ties to Doenhof and Balzer, Russia and have been matched with cousins with German-Russian backgrounds. Using genetic matches to me, I have been able to help other researchers on Ancestry and 23andMe fill in blanks for missing family members. Some I have been able to take back to the original immigrant to Russia from Germany. The primary names I have been able to help with are Baus from Doenhof and Bender and Schwabauer from Balzer, Russia. I have encouraged these genetic cousins to become members of AHSGR if they do not already belong.

Last year at this time, we were notified that records for Doenhof had been obtained through donations from Doenhof researchers and later found that the records sent were for Neu-Doenhof, which was wonderful for both Neu and Alt-Doenhof researchers. We are hoping that records for Alt-Doenhof will be obtained in the near future and that we will be able to fill in many of the research blanks many of us have from 1857-1900.

In closing, I would like to thank Delores Schwartz for her help this past year and for hosting the Doenhof village group at the convention in Billings, as I am not able to attend conventions due to work commitments.

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Kaiser
Village Coordinator for Doenhof

Doenhof Village Information

Karen didn’t mention that the records that AHSGR have been working on are near completion. In May 2017 Lee Ann Schlager was sent a number of additions from the archives to incorporate into the finished document. Since I have not heard from Lee Ann, I have received a copy of those records and will be including them in the document. As soon as it is completed and put into book format Karen Kaiser has agreed to proof it for AHSGR and will be sent a copy. The Neu-Doenhof records that Dona Reeves-Marquardt and then Michael Frank work on are a fantastic piece of research, but the spreadsheet is too large to be made into book for with births, Marriages and Deaths all included plus all the extra Michael did. We (AHSGR) will break down the files to Births, Marriages and Deaths so we can get thse out ASAP. There are a few places were the notation was not entered and we are working on translating that now and entering it in the document. Once that is completed then I will send a copy to Karen Kaiser to proof-read as well. AHSGR is very sorry that this has taken so long to complete but problems beyond our control made the project go long then it ever should have. As soon as everything is completed those who did donate monetarily to the project will be contacted.

Once again thanks to all who help get the projected off the ground and the patience that you provided AHSGR on this project.

I was informed that there are Alt-Doenhoff Communion records available and perhaps once this is all complete and we have the donations for another project we can start on that.

If anyone has any questions what so ever on these projects you are more than welcome to contact me at 785-656-0329 and I will gladly answer any of your questions. AHSGR is making great strides in releasing more documents to its members and fellow researchers. If you take a look at the AHSGR store site: https://ahsgr.site-ym.com/store/default.aspx? You can see what we have been up to. In fact, today we just release the 1870-1886 Brunnental, Russia Communion Register that Maggie Hein worked on https://ahsgr.site-ym.com/store/ViewProduct.aspx?id=10642683.

Thanks for everyone’s work as a VC and please remember AHSGR as a depository for any of your research! We don’t want to lose the work and the investment of so many people.

Hope to see you all in Hays, Kansas for the 2018 convention!

Kevin Rupp

AHSGR BOD & Archives Chair

—

I have had several inquiries this year for Doenhof descendants. Among the families researched are: Rutz, Fendel, Stoll, Steinbrecher/Zulauf, Baus, Steinmark, Lind, Kisselman/Kisselmann, Aab, Legler, Lohrengel, Kaiser, and Knaus. There were multiple inquiries for the Steinbrecher and Stoll families. I was able to provide information for most researchers, although, the lack of records from 1860-1900 left some questions unanswered. I was able to do a complete lineage for some families, particularly Stoll and Steinbrecher, from the original Doenhof settler to the present day.

I have also been in contact with Lauren Brantner of the Northern Colorado chapter for a project they are doing on the Aab/Legler families, as they have family pictures, letters, etc., that they are researching and translating. Work continues on that project.

I had an enjoyable meeting with a Steinbrecher descendant this summer. I had been able to provide them with their linage from the first settler to Doenhof. We continue to correspond and share information.

My interest in using DNA results as a link to Doenhof descendants continues and I have corresponded with several new contacts in 2017. They are primarily for my Miller/Mueller, Baus, Fendel, Gomer, and allied Doenhof families. I have also used DNA results for contacts with my Balzer ancestral families and have corresponded with several. I believe that DNA will continue to be a helpful tool in linking our German-Russian ancestors.

I am hopeful that we will be able to continue to obtain more records for research from the Russian archives and fill in the missing years. I want to thank the other village coordinators for their help and input this past year and look forward to continuing our work in 2018.

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Kaiser

Co-coordinator for Village of Doenhof

Dreispitz 2017 Village Report

This year was slower than the previous year with only a handful of inquiries, however those that did contact me I was able to help provide them some family linage

I attended the annual AHSGR convention this year which was held in Milwaukee, WI and as usual was able to listen to some great lectures and learned lots.

While there I viewed a newly released DVD called “John Biel Returns” which tells the story of a man’s return to his ancestral village of Enders, Russia, and other nearby villages in 1930 and depicts their way of life.

This video is available from the bookstore and can be purchased on-line at https://ahsgr.site-ym.com/store

A short trailer of the film can be viewed on the AHSGR home page (scroll down the page).

I’m still hopefully that with the money Timothy Montania bequeathed will be used to obtain more Shcherbakovka and Dreispitz village records from the Russian archives.

Mark Wills

Village Coordinator for Dreispitz

Mark.B.Wills@jci.com

Egenheim (North South Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool, all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Emmas (North Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool, all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Erlenbach 2017 Village Report

During 2017, I was in contact with 5 people regarding their Erlenbach ancestors. Unfortunately, I was not able to provide much help to these people because there are no church records available to us. The only church records in the Volgograd Archives are scattered records from 1894 to about 1905, so we do not have information on at least 2 generations of people who lived in Erlenbach. I purchased census records for all of the towns that had residents settle in Erlenbach & Awilovo, and have traced many of the lines back to the original Volga region settler. However, we have nothing after the 1857 census for Erlenbach, and no census or church records for Awilovo.

Kathy Stahlman, VC

Fischer 2017 Village Report

I had to resign from village coordinator because I am on a church mission. Here is my report for 2017:

Lots of names added to the Family Search data base-thanks to several village coordinators for this! At the conference I helped 2 who attended and gave them a treasure of info. I also helped a couple of people who emailed me. I also donated to the Concordia Center in Portland to help pay for the 1834 Fischer census translation which has been completed. I find not having easy access to records after 1857 a stumbling block to connect others to my family and know the exact relationship.

Cheers from London

Elder Hertz

Frank 2017 Village Report

We had around 80 inquiries during 2017, which is similar to previous years. The inquiries mainly come from people who contact me on Facebook, DNA matches, and referrals from other researchers. We do receive a few requests from people who have contacted us in the past, checking to see if we had any new information for them, but most of the requests we receive each year are from researchers that we had not previously had contact with. I’ve communicated with people in Russia, Germany, Argentina, Canada, and the United States. Because we have a large collection of Church and Census records, we are usually able to provide researchers with a report on their ancestral lines back to the initial founders in Frank and Kolb. If we have confirmed exact German Origin locations, we can usually provide several generations of research back into German parish records.

The membership of our Frank-Kolb Facebook page has increased from 1,078 at the beginning of 2017 to 1,290 at the end of 2017. In early 2017, I began providing content for the Center for Volga German Studies Facebook Page. The membership of that page has increased from 2,201 at the beginning of 2017 to 2,650 at the end of 2017.

Doris and I both attended the conference celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the colonies of Frank, Hussenbach, Kautz, Kolb, Norka, Yagodnaya Polyana, in Leavenworth, Washington, on 26-28 April 2017. This event was co-sponsored by The Center for Volga German Studies and the Council of Northwest Chapters of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR). The event included several genealogies help sessions, and we were able to have one-on-one meetings with 12 people during the event. I gave two presentations at the conference, one on using Russian records for Volga German genealogy research, and one on how to do German Origin Research.

I attended the annual California District Council German-Russian Heritage Festival on June 24, 2017 in the greater Sacramento area city of Roseville, CA. I gave a presentation on how to do German Origin research.

I attended the inaugural conference of the International German Genealogy Partnership, July 28 to July 30, 2017 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I wrote a short report on my impressions of this conference which I sent to Sherry Pawelko. To summarize, this was an extremely well organized, well run, and informative conference. The attendance (nearly 700) far exceeded the organizers’ expectations. There were a few members of the GR community in attendance. The North Star Chapter had a booth in the Vendor Hall, the SGGEE was there as both a vendor and a Partner Organization, and Carolyn Schott (Black Sea German Research Community) was a speaker. I would like to encourage our various GR Organizations to consider getting more involved in the International German Genealogy Partnership, and participating in the 2019 conference, which is scheduled for June 15-17, 2019 in Sacramento, California.

This was a very successful year for German Origin research. The combination of the Decker Book, the Facius List extractions, the availability of the Kassel Archive collection on Archion, and the increased availability of digitized records on Family Search, has resulted in solving many long-standing mysteries about exactly where specific families came from. I have personally documented the origin locations of more than 90 families over the last two years, and I know I am not the only person who is taking advantage of these new resources to confirm German origins. The newly available records have been especially helpful in confirming exact village origins of Huck and Norka families, who are frequently described only as being from “Isenburg” in the First Settler’s Lists. I have also found many families that settled in Messer and Kutter, a few families that settled in Walter, Reinwald, Stephan, Rothammel and Seewald, and a handful of families from other villages.

We have been working on several projects related to Village of Frank Revision Lists and Family Lists. One of my cousins in Russia finished her translation of the 1834 Revision (Census) List. I have begun reviewing that translation and matching the entries to our database. The translation is quite detailed, and the translator made many helpful comments about items on the original documents that did not make sense or that disagreed with other available records.

We have an ongoing project related to the 1857 Revision (Census) List. Doris and I received the translation of the 1857 Census in June. We took a quick look through it to see if it seemed to match up with information that we already have. Unfortunately, our quick review of the translation revealed a number of discrepancies. We began doing a line-by-line analysis, comparing the data in the translation to the data that we have from other sources. Since I have the images of the original 1857 documents, I was able to check what was in the translation against what is in the originals. I would place the problems into three categories: (1) problems with the data in the original documents, (2) variations in rendering Cyrillic spellings to German spellings, and (3) errors in the translation. The biggest problem is the data in the original documents. There are always challenges in converting a name written in Cyrillic into a “standard” German spelling. The scribe who filled out the original forms spelled many names in ways that are completely unlike the way that our German names are “normally” spelled in Russian documents. This is causing us to have to refer to the other Russian-language records and the German-language church records to determine what some of the surnames should be. In addition to being creative with surnames, this scribe did not seem to care whether he listed the first names correctly. This has resulted in a long list of discrepancies between what is on the census and what we know to be the correct names based on the church records and other census records. And, of course, any time that you are working with 160 year-old handwritten documents, you are likely to make some errors. I have done enough translating myself to be well aware of how easy it is to make a mistake. It is always a good idea to have a second, or even third set of eyes review a translation of this size. I am about two-thirds of the way through the process of reviewing the 1857 translation.

Our big acquisition for the year was the 1887 Frank Family List. We have known for years that one of the Russian Archives had a list that was described as an “1887 Family List”. We were told that the pages were “too large to photocopy” and that was the end of the conversation. A couple of years ago, I requested samples of some Frank Census and Family List pages so that I could see what information was reported on the various lists. The image quality on the copies of the 1887 Family List was poor, but from the bits that I could decipher it looked like it could be valuable, so I inquired again if we could obtain a copy. This time the answer was yes, but because the original pages were so large, there would need to be several images made of each page. Finally, earlier this year, I was notified that the archive now had the equipment to do full page images of the oversized pages. I have received more than 1,200 images from this list which I believe is the entire list. Why would we need this list when we have so much Frank data already? Unfortunately, we have a block of birth records missing from 1887 through 1896. We also have a few missing pages here and there throughout the church records we do have. This list confirms information that we already have, and provides much additional information. The families are listed in order of household number. The household number on the “previous revision” is given. In this case, the “previous revision” would be the 1857 Census. The name of each male head of household is given along with his patronymic (father’s name). His age on the 1857 census is given, his age as of Jan 1, 1887 is given, and his birth date is given. If there are any sons that are still part of his household, they are listed along with their ages as of Jan 1, 1887, and birth dates. Information about military service is noted. On the opposite page, the female family members are listed, along with their ages and birth dates. If individuals were born or died after 1887, the names and dates are noted. Based on what I have seen so far, the additional birth and death information continues until the first few years of the 1900s. I have translated the names and birth dates of the heads of household (over 650 households), and have begun working on translating the rest of the document. Because of the amount of data and the level of detailed information, this will be a long-term project. The document is in Russian, with some portions in very sloppy handwriting.

I have also been working on translating our post-1891 (Russian language) church records. We have around 10-20 years (depending on the type of record) of birth, marriage, and death records in Russian. One of the members of my Facebook group (who was doing research at one of the Russian Archives) alerted me to the fact that the 1907-1913 birth records had recently been found there. I have now acquired those. I work on bits of this as I have time.

Maggie Hein

Village of Frank

Visit us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/FrankKolbRussia/

Friedenberg 2017 Village Report

VC for Friedenberg

Nothing to report again this year.

I continue to hope someone contacts me with connections to Friedenberg.

Happy New Year everyone!

Brenda Silvey
Village Coordinator for Friedenberg, Russia, AHSGR

Friedensdorf (in Molotschna) 2017 Village Report

I received no inquiries in the past year for the rural village of Friedensdorf.

I found this very interesting satellite image of the village listed under its modern name of Khmel’nyts’ke, Zaporiz’ka Oblast, UA showing there is still activity there: http://google-maps.pro/satellite/Khmelnytske.Zaporizka_Oblast.Ukraine

Respectfully submitted,

John Niessen

jsniessen@yahoo.com

Friedensdorf village coordinator

Göbel 2017 Village 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 not able to attend the 2017 AHSGR Convention. I received four direct requests in 2017; I was not able to help very much due to lack of records and other time commitments. I am looking forward to a more active 2018.

Ben Markel

bgmarkel@hotmail.com

Goebel Village Coordinator

Grimm 2017 Village Report

It has been a good year for Grimm researchers. We helped several individuals tracing their family connections to Grimm.

After more than ten years of acquiring two or three surnames at a time, the 1897 Grimm census

has been completed. It was published in December and is now available for sale at AHSGR Headquarters. We would like to acknowledge Rick Rye as the translator of these records.

We continue to develop the Grimm data base using the Kulberg Lists, the First Settlers List, the Germans from Denmark to Russia List, the 1775, 1798, 1816, 1834, 1850, 1857, & the 1897 Grimm census and the Grimm 1889 Heads of Family List. We maintain separate data bases and compare our data and make corrections. The good folks that we help share their information with us most of the time, which we add to the data base. We also use the Obit files to expand our data bases.

Challenges include gaps in the census records that prevent us from connecting families from one census to another. Also, the changes of spelling of surnames prevents connecting families.

Respectively Submitted

Grimm VC’s

John Groh and Henry Schmick

Huck 2017 Annual Report

Neither of us were able to attend the convention this year. Dennis and I worked together to help several individuals looking for their ancestors with the names of Bohl, Frick, Hempel, Frey, Ross, Schwabauer, Kreick, Huck, Schafer, Zitterkopf, Jaeger, Schnell and Hein and like most of us they were trying to connect those who fall into the black hole period (1858-1889) where we have little or no information.

This last year Pam continued to add to her data base by going thru the Censuses and adding those individuals who left Huck for other villages. She is about half way thru and when this is completed will follow them by way of the appropriate Surname charts. It is a long and drawn out process but very rewarding at times.

Dennis’ time was consumed during the last half of the year by a combination of home selling, moving, and unexpected medical procedures. Looking to forward

2018 to work with a clean slate. Supporting new members, contacts from Facebook about Huck and (welcome) surprise questions from others continues to be a satisfying time – especially when it is possible to provide information from existing records in addition to the times when, because of the 1858-1889 record gap ‘black hole’, possible connections are identified and suggestions are made to support additional research (and when one of those suggestions is successful everyone can celebrate).

Pam Wurst and Dennis Zitterkopf

volgariver@windstream.net, zitter@cox.net

Hussenbach (Linevo Osero) 2017 Village Report

Shari and I continue to build on previous work that we have done on our village. I work primarily on inputting data into the database and researching information about the village. Shari works mainly with inquiries from people about their ancestors.

Our Facebook page has 256 members. it can be found at: https://goo.gl/yYZ84Z . Alexander Baumung is one of our Hussenbach research associates in Germany, he recently posted photographs of the pastors of the Hussenbach Lutheran church the Facebook page. They served the parish of Frank, traveling to each parish about once every four to six weeks. Viktor Zinn is another of our research associates in Germany and he has translated many of our Russian records. Jorge Bohn has also found many articles about Hussenbach and other colonies and posted them to our page. All of our contributors make for some great historical reading.

We received a little over 20 inquiries by email for ancestor research. I worked with two family researchers Suppes and Schilling and we were able to exchange quite a bit of information and develop a fairly detailed lineage for each of these names. This took the majority of my research time. Other long-term projects are a continual update of my Reconstructed First Settler’s List. I have been using George Rauschenbach’s Deutsche Kolonisten auk den Wag von St. Petersburg each Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767, to confirm information on the first settlers.

I attended the Milwaukee 2017 Convention. I was able to help a few people with their families and I also helped with other villages in Frank Kanton as other coordinators were not able to attend.

All the Hussenbach records have been translated. Inputting them into the database is ongoing. I have over 4500 records to enter onto individuals. We have over 44,200 individuals in the database.

Susan Hopp Nakaji

Shari Mehling Stone

Johannesdorf (North Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Josefstal 2017 Village Report

In 2017 I had one request for shared information…dealing with the Weigel family. It included a great military photograph.

This year I hope to finish translating my book dealing with the history of Josefstal.

Other than that, things were slow. I continue to hunt for passenger lists, and as I find them I update the publication printed on Josefstal travellers throughout the world.

These are published on my web site:

https://josefstal.wordpress.com/ where I am slowly publishing information I have in my Josefstal files.

Ted Gerk

Jost 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Kamenka 2017 Village Report

This year I received requests for Meier, Schaefer, Bayer, Gerling, Deiloff, Heit, Flohr,

These were from Argentina, Germany and the United States

On hand I have the Kamenka Census for 1775, 1798, 1834, 1850 1857 and the First Settler List.

I have some information for the time after the 1857 census that has been gleaned from online sources as well as received information

Respectfully submitted,

Rosemary Larson

https://web.archive.org/web/20000816153546/http://www.webbitt.com/volga/kamenka/

Karlsruhe (North Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Katharinental 2017 Village Report

I became the Village Coordinator for Rosental (am Jeruslan), Samara and Katharinental, Samara in October 2017. I attended the AHSGR Convention in Milwaukee. Census records have been acquired of 1850, 1857 and 1861 for Rosental and 1857 for Katharinental.

I translated the Rosental Census of 1857 from images available from the LDS collection in collaboration with Tim Weeder, VC for Paulskoye. This census is now available from AHSGR (to find it, search for ‘Rosental’ in the main search box in the upper right corner of the AHSGR main web page – it presently cannot be found in the Census Lists in the Online Store).

I also translated the Rosental Census of 1850 and 1861. A census of Rosental for 1850 is also available from Kevin Rupp. Translation was by Waldemar Pflug (this version of the census lists 178 colonists but missed Karl Maurer, an infant son of Karl Maurer in household 25). The inhabitants of Rosental in 1850 numbered 91 male and 88 femalse for a total of 179.

In searching for the census of Rosental for 1857, an error was discovered in an index page on LDS film 2373694, image 542. A typewritten index lists:

12. Розенталь(page) 1759 (“Rosental”)

This census starts on LDS film 2373696, image 272 and ends at image 285. Image 272 lists “1759” in the upper right corner, but the census is for Rosendamm (not Rosental). Apparently, Waldemar Pflug translated the 1857 census of Rosendamm dated 12 November 1857 and the translation was miss-labeled as for Rosental.

The correct census of Rosental (am Jeruslan, Samara) for 1857, dated 3 October 1857, is located on LDS film 2379339, images 713-742. The index is on image 660 and correctly lists Rosental. This census is clearly from the same village as the 1850 census of Rosental described above. All of the households in the 1850 census are found on this 1857 census in addition to newly arrived colonists. In 1857, there were 368 colonists.

An additional Rosental census was found for 1861. Listed are colonists who arrived in Rosental since the 1857 census. This census is on LDS film 2379339, images 356 – 394. It contains an additional 310 colonists.

I obtained permission and translated the chapters for Katharinental and Rosental from Olga Litzenberger’s book “Deutsche evangelische Siedlungen an der Wolga”.

I sent various files to AHSGR for placement in the Village Files. The files include surname lists and general information for Katharinental and Rosental.

An inquiry was received from Mara Koch about the Wiedenbeck family. Information was provided including ancestors back to Germany.

I have been tracing the colonist of Katharinental and Rosental back to their mother villages and ancestors to America. I was able to locate the Fellinger family of the 1857 Rosental census as earlier residing in Schäfer (with the help of Schäfer VC Brenna Stokes). The other colonist was found residing earlier in their listed mother colonies.

I am presently searching for Anna Marie Bauer (wife of Georg Keil) and Georg Bauer of Katharinental. The 1857 census of Katharinental lists only colonists from mother colony Neu-Straub. There are no Bauer families in the 1834 census of Neu-Straub, so the origins of the Bauers of Katharinental is a mystery.

Apparently, some families did not follow the official process to relocate to daughter colonies, but just left on their own and reappeared in a daughter colony. This happened at least once in both Katharinental and Rosental.

These are two minor villages. Information is scant. Care is required to not confuse them with other colonies with the same names.

Respectively submitted,

Jerry

Jeremy Landt, Village Coordinator, Katharinental, Samara and Rosental, Samara

2 Rabbit Rd.

Santa Fe, NM 87508

505-690-3000

jeremysfnm@gmail.com

Katherinenfeld (North Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool, all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Kautz 2017 Village Report

Throughout 2017 I have kept abreast of deaths of Kautz descendants, primarily from Walla Walla, Billings and surrounding areas in Montana where many Kautz villagers settled. I receive daily obituaries from the Billings Gazette electronically. Henry Schmick has been diligent in supplying relevant obituaries from Billings and other areas of the country for inclusion into the notes section of the Kautz database.

I receive frequent requests for information about Kautz families and I normally have the information to happily provide in most cases. This process leads to additional family information, bringing them up to date with births, marriages, deaths, relationships and corrections.

I wasn’t able to attend the AHSGR convention in 2017.

After five full years as publisher of the AHSGR Oregon chapter newsletter, once every 2 months, 30 total, I relinquished my duties, giving someone else a chance to shine. I was able to draw upon my knowledge of Kautz and surrounding villages to supply many of the stories in the publications over those five years. Many people from our chapter helped provide additional material and I thank them for that. The website for those newsletters is: http://www.oregonahsgr.org/newsletter.html. My Oregon Chapter Board of Directors position ends in December of 2018.

The DVD which I produce for my village of Kautz (Unsere Leute von Kautz) has been updated to now consist of 300 pages in Volume 9, the volume I produced after the passing of my aunt, Elaine Frank Davison. The Kautz database now contains 31,443 individuals and 10,029 marriages. Because of the number of shared individuals and marriages between Kautz and Merkel, I decided to fold Merkel information into the Kautz genealogical database. Now I won’t have to maintain the same individuals in two databases. Spreadsheets reflecting Lutheran church records for each of the two villages will continue to be kept separate.

I continue to assist one of the AHSGR Village Coordinators for Dietel, Karen Bouton, with the integration of Lutheran church records from her village into her Dietel genealogical database. Many families resulted from the union of individuals from Kautz and Dietel.

Continuing is my search for 50 years of Lutheran church records, 1850-1899. If in the Volgograd Archives, they are misplaced. If not there, they should exist at one of the other archives. The lack of these records prevents me from connecting many of the Kautz villagers who died as adults with their biological parents.

The Kautz webpage was previously hosted on Comcast.net. Over a year ago, these personal web pages (and those of many others) were deleted by the provider. I am in the process of rebuilding it with a new look, host, and naming convention. Look for it to be in production the first quarter of 2018.

The Kautz Facebook group can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/425613657484126/.

I joyously remembered and celebrated the 250^th anniversary of the founding of Kautz on May 20, 2017.

Michael Frank
AHSGR Village Coordinator for Kautz

Nalchik (North Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Kolb 2017 Village Report

We have an ongoing project related to the 1857 Revision (Census) List. Doris and I received the translation of the 1857 Census in June. We took a quick look through it to see if it seemed to match up with information that we already have. Unfortunately, our quick review of the translation revealed a number of discrepancies. We began doing a line-by-line analysis, comparing the data in the translation to the data that we have from other sources. Since I have the images of the original 1857 documents, I was able to check what was in the translation against what is in the originals. I would place the problems into three categories: (1) problems with the data in the original documents, (2) variations in rendering Cyrillic spellings to German spellings, and (3) errors in the translation. The biggest problem is the data in the original documents. There are always challenges in converting a name written in Cyrillic into a “standard” German spelling. The scribe who filled out the original forms spelled many names in ways that are completely unlike the way that our German names are “normally” spelled in Russian documents. This is causing us to have to refer to the other Russian-language records and the German-language church records to determine what some of the surnames should be. In addition to being creative with surnames, this scribe did not seem to care whether he listed the first names correctly. This has resulted in a long list of discrepancies between what is on the census and what we know to be the correct names based on the church records and other census records. And, of course, any time that you are working with 160 year-old handwritten documents, you are likely to make some errors. I have done enough translating myself to be aware of how easy it is to make a mistake. It is always a good idea to have a second, or even third set of eyes review a translation of this size. I am about two-thirds of the way through the process of reviewing the 1857 translation.

Maggie Hein

Village of Frank

Visit us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/FrankKolbRussia/

Kraft 2017 Village Report

I was installed as the village coordinator of Kraft in August of 2017. I have worked with Ron Burkett (Former Village Coordinator) for around 6 months prior to this date and together we had 9 contacts for this fiscal year. These break down as follows: 1 came directly from Russia, 2 came from my home city of Calgary, Canada Chapter, 1 came from Argentina and the rest from Canada/USA. We helped 7 in various degrees while for 2 we were not able to identify people or names they requested from our database. Surnames requested were Armbruster, Schmidt, Buchammer, Greb, Schulteis, Schwindt, Ruppel, Ruhl, Seib, and Schreiner.

In 2017 I was privileged to attend 2 single day seminars here in Calgary. The first sponsored by our local chapter on September 16^th hosting Steve Schreiber from Portland as speaker on the traveling of our ancestors from Germany into the Volga Region in 1767. The second was on October 21^st by Brent Mai regarding the 250th anniversary of the founding of Yagodnaya Polyana in the Volga. Both were very informative and I enjoyed meeting with Dr. Mai on a more personal basis. We managed to attend the last three annual AHSGR conventions but were unable to make the 2017 one in Milwaukee due to family illness.

Resources I have included; 1/ A 6400 name database of people who resided in Kraft primarily up to 1857 but including some later updates,

2/ Original Settler’s List at 1767 for Kraft,

3/ Complete 1798 Volga Census by Brent Alan Mai,

4/ Census Reports for the years 1816, 1834, 1850 and 1857 for Kraft.

5/ I also have a spreadsheet of Lutheran Church christening/birth records recently translated for the years 1848 to 1866 and 1902 – Marriages 1895 and 1905 – Deaths 1904

for Kraft (translated by Michael Frank for Ron Burkett).

My projects and challenges for 2018 – The above spreadsheet of Births, Marriages and Deaths has not been entered into the main database. We will start this as a winter project.

Gerald Sieb

Village Coordinator for Kraft.

Krasnoyar 2017 Village Report

There were no inquires this past year.

Susie Weber Hess

VC for Krasnoyar Russia

KUKKUS 2017 VILLAGE REPORT:

This has been a very busy year for putting new found names in the Kukkus database. Sometimes, it is not always clear who belongs in a family the way the information is printed. I just finished adding some obituary information in to the database. There were some deaths to record and some family names added to information already in the file.

I have been doing Church Service Missionary work at the Sacramento Family Search Library. I had many opportunities to help others find information about their German from Russian ancestors, in various villages, in both Volga and Black Sea villages. Some people had Mennonite heritage and others had other types of heritage, including some of the later villagers who moved to Siberian villages.

At present, I have about 14,600 plus names in the data base. I attended the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, convention where I looked to see if any persons from other nearby villages moved to or married persons from Kukkus. I am looking forward to publication of the Kukkus Canton information that Headquarters bought from Russian Archives. I verified as many village names, as I could, who lived in Kukkus.

I appreciate all those persons who have updated their family information and all those who requested information about their Kukkus family. My biggest challenge is to connect some of the information I have to their family line. Sometimes there is only American information which I try to verify as to whom they descended from.

I am looking forward to finding new Kukkus village connections.

Eleanor Sissell – esissell@gmail.com <esissell@gmail.com>;</esissell@gmail.com>

KUKKUS Village Coordinator

Langenfeld 2017 Annual Report

Nothing going on. I still have purchased Rosenfeld images to have translated. I have a chance to purchase Langenfeld records but could not find anyone to go in on it with me.

I have not had anyone email me on possible connection to these Villages – BUMMER.

Roger Burbank, VC for above Villages.

Laub 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Leichtling 2017 Village Report

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

Leichtling, Saratov, Volga, Russia (original German name) Ilovlinka (И ловлинка), of Ust’-Gryaznukha Selsovet (Village Soviet), Kamyshin Region, Volgograd Oblast Map 6, Quadrant B-6, 50 32 N 45 24 E *

No requests at all this year. First time that has ever happened. Could be because most of my information is available at the Leichtling website at http://www.boydhouse.com/leichtling/ Including all the census records, first settler’s lists, known ships lists and any private records.

Looking at trying to add the later census records (AFTER 1850) but funding is being worked on.

Hoping 2018 is a more active year!!!

Darryl Boyd

Leichtling, Russia

Louis 2017 VC Report
I have received a number of emails throughout the year generally one a week for one of my villages. Many this year seem to be coming from South America. Most of these contacts are very open to sharing information generally their basic info and sometimes a old family photo. I have had a couple of emails from Siberia looking for information and Yulia is in the process of translating of the letters now that is in Russian. The letter is supposed to explain the family’s deportation from Russia to Siberia.

I continue to add more books to my library on research. Books this years included:

Gedenkbuck:Stolze Geduld (Tagillag)
Hochzeitmusik – Johann Windholz (from Argentina)
Deutsches Erbe Von Mayorovka in Kasachstan – Johann Windholz (Argentina)
Deutsche Kolonisten Auf Dem Weg Von St. Petersburg Nach Saratow 1766-1767
Familien Russelsheim 1586-1905 2 Volumes
Deutsches Familienarchiv – Familiengeschichte Pfannstiel
Geschichte in Gedichten und Prosa (HFDR Band 14) – Anton Bosch

Many of the books are just general research on genealogy, folklore and music. A good friend of mine entered the nursing home and I received a large portion of her German from Russian Library. I have started to keep extra copies of the book Conquering the Wind for people who know very little on the Germans from Russia and usually end up giving them a copy.

As far as material on the village of Louis. The early records are shared with the village of Mariental. Denise Grau and I are Co-VC’s for this village. Since our villages are basically all tied together we have toyed with the idea of doing a general newsletter of these villages. Denise had been doing a very interesting newsletter just on Mariental.

So, research material I have at this time:

About two year ago I had commissioned Olga Litzenberger to do a write up on my village which she did. A brief description of the history of the village is found on my website: https://www.volgagerman.net/louis-russia

Olga’s version will be added soon. It has already been printed in the AHSGR Journal.
It’s about 13 pages and the topics it covers are:

1.. Geographical Location and Administrative-Territorial Situation in the 18 and 20th Centuries.
2.. Brief History of the Settlement
3.. Schools and School Instruction
4.. Denomination of the Residents and its Peculiarities
5.. The Parish
6.. Sate of the Church Construction and its Architectural Features
7.. Population Numbers
8.. Excerpts from History of the Church Community and the Parish
9.. List of the Clergy of the Louis Parish
10.. The Village Today
11.. Archival Sources
12.. An Especially Interesting Archival Document
13.. Louis in the Press, April 1, 1898 Plus a number of footnotes.
This information will be included in the next Sunflower Chapter Newsletter and in the AHSGR Summer Journal.

Church records include: Records are all translated except where noted:

BIRTHS:
1888
1890
1893 (Partial Translated)
1909

MARRIAGES:
1789-1827 (including Mariental, NOT translated)
1827-1834 (including Mariental, NOT translated)
1842-1847 (including Mariental, NOT translated)
1851-1855 (including Mariental, NOT translated)
1848
1849
1850
1890
1892
1893
1902
1903
1904
1906

FAMILY LISTS
1893

OTHER LISTS:
Kulberg List
First Settlers List
1798 Census
1834 Census
1850 Census
1857 Census

I do have many Church plan drawings during construction.

My data base is set up with Family Tree Maker. As I stated in my Obermunjou Report. I had an issue with my computer and lost a number of records from the past three years and about 600 families on my Family Tree Maker. Since then I have gone to an off-site IDRIVE back-up system which I am very pleased with, so far.

I do have a website, www.volgagerman.net which houses all my villages as well as some other villages of other VC’s. I plan on adding a couple more villages soon from AHSGR VC’s. One is Doenhof and the other is Yagodnaya Polyana. I am working with those VCs on these additions.

I hope to see many of your at the 2018 AHSGR Convention here in Hays this summer!

Kevin Rupp
VC for the colony of Louis, Russia

Kevin Rupp
www.volgagerman.net
www.ahsgr.org
volgagerman@ruraltel.net

Lauwe 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Marienberg 2017 Village Repot

There have been no requirements for Marienberg. The archives were asked to search for possible new registrations and the existence of a list of families corresponding to the year 1902 has been confirmed. Its high cost prevents me from making the purchase, so, probably with the help of a colleague coordinator a fundraising will be promoted.

Neu Kolonie. I signed as coordinator in the past year 2017. I have had two requests from people looking for ancestors and I have been able to direct them in their research. In 2017, Alexander Kamlowski published a book with his research on the colony, of more than 600 pages, which contains all the records that are known, censuses and individual years.

Streckerau: The requirements of descendants have been numerous, both to this coordinator and to the colleague Angela Gartner. She requested me and I sent her all the records available and translated from different years referring to the colony, and she is systematizing them. Information was also obtained from the archives on the existence of a fund that contains facts, data and records of the colony, corresponding to the year 1875. The same circumstance occurs as for the existing Marienberg data, its cost is very high and it is possible for me to acquire them.

Regarding Streckerau, through the internet, I had the joy of contacting a direct cousin whose family lived in the colony and was deported to the area of Karasuk (Novosibirsk area). He was born there in the year 1950 and now the whole family is living in Germany. Thanks to his intervention it was possible to rescue a plat map made in 1941 by the teacher of the school of Streckerau. It is a colorful plan, made on a poster paper, with the houses and surnames of each of the settlers who lived at the time of the deportation. Thanks to this plan, whose original was entrusted to my cousin, who had to make more than one trip of around 600 kilometers to finally obtain it, the location of the church of Streckerau could be reliably determined, demolished to build with the obtained materials and on the same campus a school, currently in use.

Through the Facebook site dedicated to the colony, its members have published valuable references of ancestors over time, which allows us to continue expanding the database, the only valuable reference attentive to the absence of any census for having been founded later of the revision of the year 1857 (1863, although repeated bibliographical references show the presence of colonists already since the year 1855).

For work reasons I could not attend the Convention in Milwaukee, but I hope I can do it to the next in Hays.

I continue posting data about Germans from Russia in my facebook group Russiangermans Repository, and sharing it in so many groups and pages as possibly

I wish you all a great 2018.

Jorge Bohn

Merkel 2017 Village Report (Makarovka)

Starting from scratch in the first half of 2016, I continue to process records for this village.

They include a Merkel GEDCOM file provided by AHSGR Lincoln. I have also been translating a number of years of Merkel Lutheran church records into a spreadsheet for later inclusion into the Kautz/Merkel genealogical database. Two published Merkel books by Darrell Kautz, former AHSGR Merkel Village Coordinator, are being reviewed by me. A set of these books reside in the CVGS (Center for Volga-German Studies) library.

I was able to visit Merkel in August 2016 and take photographs and video while there. The village is but 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. Anyone who would like photos I took of this village should notify me at dm48@comcast.net. Give me your e-mail address and I’ll be happy to send the photos electronically.

Those with an interest in Merkel genealogy should be aware that work for this village is in its early stages. Please contribute information if you can and have patience with me.

Michael Frank
Merkel Village Coordinator for AHSGR

Messer 2017 Village Report

During 2017 I continued to help those who contacted me with questions on their ancestors from Messer. Two Messer / Neu Messer Newsletters were sent out during 2017; one in April, and the other in October. I attended the Milwaukee convention in August and hosted a dinner for Messer and Neu Messer descendants. We acquired four different groups of Messer records from the Russian archives during 2017.

1. Messer Birth Records 1856 – 1858. These records were purchased with funds donated by Messer descendants. These records start to bridge the gap between the 1857 Messer Census which has been available for number of years and our Messer ancestors who were born in the 1870s and later. The records were in Russian and were also translated with donated funds. This set of Birth Records is now available for purchase from the AHSGR.

2. Messer Marriage Records 1804 – 1826. These records were procured from the Russian archives by an anonymous donor. Since these records were in German, I translated them. They are now available for purchase from the AHSGR.

3. Messer Death Records 1805 – 1826. These records were also provided by the same anonymous donor of the Marriage Records. I also translated them and they are also available for purchase from the AHSGR.

4. Messer 1897 Census. These records were purchased by the AHSGR Archives committee. They have been translated with a combination of funds donated by Messer descendants and provided by the Archives committee. The translation has been completed and the document is now being edited. It should be available for purchase from the AHSGR in the next few months. It is interesting that many of the people listed in this Census are no longer living there. It includes people who have moved to other Volga villages, Russian cities, Siberia, North America, and South America. The majority of the households include someone who is older than 40, so in many cases it is possible to link the people in this census back to the families in the 1857 census.

The Messer / Neu Messer Distribution/Mailing List continues to grow and now includes 70 individuals. The Messer / Neu Messer database also continues to grow and now has over 12,800 names of Messer and Neu Messer colonists and their descendants.

Mike Meisinger

AHSGR Village Coordinator for Messer and Neu Messer

MOOR (AKA KLUTCHI) 2017 ANNUAL REPORT

Early in 2017, we were saddened to learn that fellow Moor VC Irma Wagner had to resign because of health problems. It was always a pleasure corresponding with her. We wish Irma all our best.

2017 was an incredible year for Moor research. Due to the generous contributions of a very few researchers here and in Russia, we were able to obtain copies of all of the publicly known church records: (births 1827-1859, marriages 1804-1822 and 1834-1865, and deaths 1805-1876). All of the records were recorded in German. Unfortunately, there are gaps in the records and copies of the Communion Lists and 1897 census do not seem to have survived.

Indices were made of the birth and marriage entries and copies have been submitted to headquarters. Apparently, these are now available on line for review.

One newsletter was issued this year. I was not able to attend the convention.

Because of the time devoted to the new Russian records, the German Origins project for Moor was put on temporary hold. Never the less, origins were identified for 6 settlers. This included Johann Hartmann Schwab, Catharina Müller and her brother Martin, Johannes Diehl, Anna Johanna Steinbach, and Philip Bamberger. Origin of one settler (Johann Georg Mai) is tentative. We expect to renew this research in 2018. To date, we have at least partial information on 47 of the original 70 founding families.

Inquiries were received from researchers in the United States, Germany, Argentina. and Russia, and I was able to fulfill most of their requests. Now that we have copies of some post 1857 church records, we have been able to complete or help to fill in ancestral charts for a couple of Moor researchers (Wunder and Ernst).

We do not anticipate receiving any new records from Russia in 2018, but one never knows. Not certain yet about attending the 2018 convention. Hoping new Facius-type records will be found in Germany and available to us for further clues. A newsletter is also anticipated.

Wayne H. Bonner

Moor VC

whbonner@aol.com

Neu Kolonie 2017 Village Repot

For work reasons I could not attend the Convention in Milwaukee, but I hope I can do it to the next in Hays.

I continue posting data about Germans from Russia in my facebook group Russiangermans Repository, and sharing it in so many groups and pages as possibly

I wish you all a great 2018.

Jorge Bohn

Neu Laub 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Neu Messer 2017 Village Report

During 2017 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 2017; one in April, and the other in October. I attended the AHSGR Convention in Milwaukee, WI in August and one of the evenings the Messer and Neu Messer descendants got together for Dinner.

We have been trying to determine if there is an 1897 Census for Neu Messer. If we are able to locate it, acquiring it and getting it translated will become a top priority in 2018.

Mike Meisinger

AHSGR Village Coordinator for Messer and Neu Messer

New Balzer 2017 Village Report

I had 4 contacts concerning the village of New Balzer. I was not able to help 3 of the contacts but had success in helping the 4^th. More research is being conducted to complete the project.

The New Balzer data base includes the following information:

About 300 names of individuals that lived in New Balzer.

The obituaries of 30 individuals that lived in New Balzer but immigrated to the U.S.

Immigration records of 26 families and 57 people from New Balzer to the U.S.

U.S. Naturalization records of 8 individuals that were born in New Balzer.

U. S. Draft registration records of 5 individuals that were born in New Balzer.

A list of people who died in New Balzer in 1904.

A list of people that were married in New Balzer in 1894/5.

A list of 84 descendants whose ancestors were deported from New Balzer to Kazakhstan on August 19, 1941.

The goal for 2018 is to obtain the 1897 New Balzer census that is located in Saratov, Russia.

Marv Heckman; Village Coordinator

Nieder-Monjou 2017 Village Report

This past year we received queries or correspondence regarding the following Nieder-Monjou surnames ANSCHÜTZ, BINEDELL, FUNK, HERBER, MUHL, MÜLLER, ROSENGRÜN, TAG, and WOLF. The queries and correspondence came from Germany, South Africa, and the United States.

I finally finished entering all of the Nieder-Monjou information from the Kulberg lists, Transport lists, Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1785 debt register, 1798 census, 1811 males only census, 1850 census, 1857 census, and several surname specific extracts from the 1874 family list, 1897 census, 1898 family list into our data base.

Since Nieder-Monjou was founded in 1767, I was able to find almost all of the N-M first settlers in the Kulberg and Transport lists. Sometimes this was a challenge. For example, the N-M surname Binedell is found in the Kulberg and Transport lists as Penetell and the N-M surname Triller is found in the Kulberg and Transport lists as Drotter.

Mike attended the AHSGR 2017 Convention in Milwaukee.

Nieder-Monjou AHSGR Village Coordinators Michael Grau and Steven Grau Nieder-Monjou Web Site: http://volga.niedermonjou.org:8000/

Norka 2017 Village Report

Respectfully submitted on 05 January 2018 by:

Julie Mangano, Norka Village Coordinator for AHSGR

juliemangano@yahoo.com

Steve Schreiber, Past 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 2017, 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 1082 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 141 people from December of 2016.

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

An updated Norka website was developed and launched in 2016. The site can be found here:

http://www.norkarussia.info/

The website contains nearly 400 pages of information about this colony.

Judy Wiese has kindly assisted as the website editor.

Steve is also served as the AHSGR Oregon Chapter President and Interim Director of the Center for Volga German Studies (CVGS) at Concordia University.

Julie Mangano has taken on the Norka VC duties and Louis Schleuger continues as the Norka Database and Census Records Coordinator.

Norka Communion Register Acquisition Project

The CVGS received digital copies of three Norka family registers covering the following years:

1834-1845

1876-1890

1891-1905

Dr. Brent Mai has completed the translation of the 1891-1905 register. Please be patient as the remaining two registers are translated. These books have hundreds of pages and many detailed entries.

Those who contribute $200 or more will automatically receive a copy of the English translation for each of the three registers, once completed.

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 54 requests during 2017.

The Norka Database contains over 59,823 individuals (an increase of 9,716 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 this cross-referencing effort errors were noted on Dr. Pleve’s charts listed in the Norka Database and within the censuses concerning family members’ marriages, number of children and their linkages with other families. Part of the linkage effort includes the 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.

Julie Mangano
Norka Village Co-Coordinator

Oberdorf 2017 Village Report

For the year that has passed: nothing new to report.

Have a good year 2018!

Elena Vega Stehle

Buenos Aires- Argentina

AHSGR Oberdorf Village Coordinator

https://www.facebook.com/groups/183076058528244/

https://www.facebook.com/elena.vegastehle.1?fref=ts
http://aldeaprotestanteer.blogspot.com

Obermunjou 2017 Village Report:

I was not able to work as much my villages as I was able to do last year due to working on many projects with AHSGR. My biggest disappointment was the lost of about 3 years of genealogical work on my genealogy program which was cause by a computer technician. Yes, all the information was backed up on an external drive, but the technician wiped it clean before backing up all the information. I did have my old computer with all my information from 2014 back and I was able to load that all back on, but all my genealogy and AHSGR work from the past three years was wiped. To all of you that do not have an off the site back-up system I would strongly recommend it. I signed up with IDRIVE which was high recommended by many VC’s and my work is now back up every time I add a new document to the cloud.

I do get a number of emails from people wanting help with their genealogy, many from Germany, Russia and South America. I did not keep track, I hope to this year.

Much of the information below has been on past reports but I have updated a few items.

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 who 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 102,755 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. With the crash of 2017 my database went down to 102,155, basically 600 names. Could have been worse.

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 – 2017 The Sunflower Chapter of Hays, Ks. Purchased the 1834 census list and is for sale through the AHSGR Website. Store.

3. 1850 Census

4. 1857 Census

5. Births – 1821-1834 (Not Complete); 1855-1866 (Not Complete) 1871-1911 (Not Complete; 1875; 1880-1881; 1889; 1894-1918 (Not Complete)

6. Marriages – 1802-1809; 1810-1815; 1821-1826; 1840; 1850-1851; 1858; 1861-1864; 1875; 1880-1881; 1889; 1894-1918 (Not 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.

Kevin Rupp

AHSGR 49^th Annual International Convention –
Hays, Kansas, July 30 – Aug 2, 2018

Come join us!!

Paulskoye 2017 Annual Report

This year I attended Brent Mai’s conference in July in Chicago celebrating in part the 250th founding of Paulskoye. I also attended the AHSGR Convention in Milwaukee. At both I met some email acquaintances, old friends and naturally made some new friends.

I received just one US inquiry this year and it was from George Santos who was researching his ancestors David Lobes and Lydia Lenk of Bellwood, Illinois. As other Village Coordinators know that can turn into many weeks of email exchanges as I pored over available Lobes and Lenk records. I provided additional information about how to obtain needed Russian archival documents, as well as encouragement to join AHSGR.

From Abroad I received a few inquiries concerning Merkel families, and one inquiry concerning a Schneider family. The researchers provided some limited family history and in some cases photographs.

One project I tackled this year was working with Jerry Landt who is now VC for Rosental am Jeruslan. Jerry has translated the 1857 Census for Rosental am Jeruslan, which has just become available for purchase from AHSGR. Rosental was a daughter colony first founded by colonists from Kaneau, followed by colonists from Paulskoye and several other villages. His wife’s Guenther family were from Rosental, and we traced them back to Paulskoye. An 1850 Census is available for purchase from Kevin Rupp.

Finally, I’d like to share a puzzle with my fellow Village Coordinators which I have successfully solved. You may have already had a similar experience, but if you haven’t I encourage you to keep an open-mind about such matters. After a great deal of detective work I discovered a Paulskoye immigrant to the US (specifically Conrad Scherer to Croswell, Sanilac County, MI in 1912) who had used older brother Friedrich’s identity papers to emigrate from Russia and then resumed his own identity once here. This was corroborated with an oral family tradition, village family lists, passenger ship records, and a newspaper account. It was probably rare, but my point is that it did sometimes happen. I personally know of one additional case from a different village. So if you have an immigrant, yet no passenger record for them AND find a passenger record for a person with the same surname, same parents, different marital status, etc., yet no record at all of them going forward can be found, keep it as a possibility that the identity papers of a sibling may have been used.

Respectfully submitted, Tim Weeder

Village Coordinator for Paulskoye

Pfeifer 2017 Village Report

Surname inquiries were received about Leonhard, Weigel, Heim, Zink, Burgardt, Jacobs, Gerhardt

These were from Argentina, Germany, Canada, United States

On hand I have the Pfeifer Census for 1798, 1834, 1850 1857 and the First Settler List

I have some information for the time after the 1857 census that has been gleaned from on line sources as well as received information

Respectfully submitted,

Rosemary Larson

https://web.archive.org/web/20010517173351/http://www.webbitt.com/volga/pfeifer/

Polish Volhynia 2017 Village Report

During 2017 there were 17 contacts and I worked with several new members researching Fanger, Finger; Kautz and Buchholz advising what resources were available. I was also contacted by Rod Ratzlaff a new member of AHSGR who is very knowlegable about the history of the Mennonites in Volhynia. I wasn’t able to attend the convention in Milwaukee but did recruit Linda Hasse to handle Area 8 for me. A Canadian genealogical society in British Columbia Canada asked for suggestions of Volhynian resources that could be purchased for their members and I was able to provide them with a list.

I’m looking forward to attending the 20th Annual Convention of the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe from July 26 – 29, 2018 in Calgary, Alberta Canada at the Coast Plaza Hotel & Conference Center.

Mabel Kiessling

Village Coordinator for Polish Volhynia & Volhynia

m.kiessling@shaw.ca

Reinwald 2017 Village Report

There were only a few inquiries this year and a few new members to AHSGR. There is no new information available now and I have started to research German church records to help determine where some of the original settlers came from. The face book page has remained active with lots of communication and sharing of information between members.

Susie Weber Hess

VC fir Reinwald

Rosenberg 2017 Village Report (daughter colony)

Herdt, Maior (Major). Weitzel, Ramig, Böhm, (Gary Martens on census – from Kraft), Shipplehout (and Eberhardt), Dahlinger, Meisner, Ziegler and Swarz, and new member with connections to Martin, Fritzler, Reizenstein, Buckhammer and Sieb

www.volgadeutsche.net

Village Coordinator for Rosenberg Report 2017 – Richard E. McGregor

As other coordinators have found the enquiries generated for Rosenberg have once again been quite limited this year. I received 8 requests for information and a small amount of information has been added to the file. I answered queries on the He3rdt, Maior (or Major), Ramig (or Ramich), Böhm, Shipplehout (married to Eberhardt), Dahlinger, Meisner, and Ziegler (married to Swarz) families. A new member of AHSGR lists Rosenberg connections with the surnames Martin, Fritzler, Reizenstein, Buckhammer and Sieb.

Gary Martens noted a necessary correction for the 1857 census of Rosenberg in that the family in household 10, Böhm, should be listed as coming from Kraft and not as written in the census document. Rhonda Kelley sent me photos of the passport for Alexander Dahlinger who travelled to Canada in 1903, with a connection to Argentina.

Finally, I have found the information contained on www.volgadeutsche.net to be useful as some of it derives from research in the Russian archives.

Richard McGregor richardmcgregor1@yahoo.co.uk/richard.mcgregor@cumbria.ac.uk

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

Rosenfeld am Nachoi 2017 Annual Report

Rosenfeld am Nachoi did not have a Village Coordinator until August of 2017. As Rosenfeld was established as a daughter Lutheran colony in 1859, many of the descendants of this village may be unaware that some of their family moved to this colony. The settlers of Rosenfeld am Nachoi moved from the following villages:

· Enders (1 Family)

· Rosenheim (19 Families)

· Reinwald (30 Families)

· Krasnoyar (31 Families)

· Nieder-Monjou (2 Families)

· Schwed (1 Family)

· Schulz (1 Family)

I am in the process of building a database from the 1862 Census. In October, I purchased the 1874 – 1899 Family List and am starting the translation.

In January of 2018 a facebook page entitled “Descendants of Rosenfeld am Nachoi” was created. As of this report, no surname inquiries have been received. As Village Coordinator, I will reach out to families with last names found in the 1862 and 1874 Revision List and invite them to join the group. 6981/403

Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Rosenfeld 2017 Annual Report

Nothing going on. I still have purchased Rosenfeld images to have translated. I have a chance to purchase Langenfeld records but could not find anyone to go in on it with me.

I have not had anyone email me on possible connection to these Villages – BUMMER.

Roger Burbank, VC for above Villages.

Rosental 2017 Village Report

In searching for the census of Rosental for 1857, an error was discovered in an index page on LDS film 2373694, image 542. A typewritten index lists:

12. Розенталь (page) 1759 (“Rosental”)

I obtained permission and translated the chapters for Katharinental and Rosental from Olga Litzenberger’s book “Deutsche evangelische Siedlungen an der Wolga”.

I sent various files to AHSGR for placement in the Village Files. The files include surname lists and general information for Katharinental and Rosental.

An inquiry was received from Mara Koch about the Wiedenbeck family. Information was provided including ancestors back to Germany.

These are two minor villages. Information is scant. Care is required to not confuse them with other colonies with the same names.

Respectively submitted,

Jerry

Jeremy Landt, Village Coordinator, Katharinental, Samara and Rosental, Samara

2 Rabbit Rd.

Santa Fe, NM 87508

505-690-3000

jeremysfnm@gmail.com

Schaffhausen 2017 Village Report

A quiet year with four enquires from persons with Schaffhausen (aka Michaelis, Wolkowo and Volkovo) ancestry.

One correspondent was able to provide me with a limited extract of the 1835 village Revision List and a more comprehensive extract of the 1892 Census. The latter lists over 300 individuals believed to be adults with handwritten notes that may refer to children. It is a jpg file (suspected to be taken by a phone camera) so it cannot be imported/manipulated. The Census is printed in an attractive script and may have been compiled with someone familiar with German language and names as it provides examples of differences in surname spelling. The last few pages are handwritten and difficult to decipher.

The 1892 Census extract has been useful in filling in gaps from earlier census data which is incomplete. It has enabled me to confirm the surnames of settlers missing from available census data but known to have resided in Schaffhausen. The 1892 census is also fairly close to early 20^th century emigration from Schaffhausen after the Stolypin agrarian reforms and corroborates my research on Schaffhausen settlers who moved to Bugulma (Samara province) during this period.

The census was provided by a German Russian living in Germany and demonstrates the value of liaison between German Russian descendants worldwide who have a common objective of recording German Russian history for current and future generations.

Schaffhausen surnames currently of interest include:

· Ballart (Ballhardt/Pallate)

· Lipphardt

· Arnold (Arnhold)

· Spahnnagel (Spahnagel/ Spannagel)

· Ungefugt (Ungefug)

I welcome any enquires regarding other surnames that may have an association with Schaffhausen or neighbouring colonies.

I have also conducted research into German Russian victims of the Stalin purges and World War 2 “Labor Army”. This has been limited to available open source media but has resulted in some chilling moments when I have identified known Schaffhausen families.

As I reside in Brisbane Australia I cannot make every Annual Conference but hope to visit in the near future. I have fond memories of the Portland Conference which I attended in 2012.

Regards

Jim Parsonage

VC Schaffhausen

Schönchen, Samara, Volga, 2017 Village Report

There were several notable occurrences in 2017 for those interested in Schoenchen. August 3, 2017 marked the 250th anniversary of the founding of Schoenchen. Brent Mai with the Volga German Institute at Fairfield University held an anniversary celebration on September 23 in Hays, Kansas. I was unable to attend due to a conflict.

AHSGR published a translation of a Schoenchen 1920 family list in January 2017. It is available for purchase through AHSGR.

The Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University in Portland obtained the Schoenchen 1834 census. I’ve completed a translation of the document which has not yet been published.

I have the following records in my collection for Schoenchen: translations of census records for 1767 (two translations), 1798, and 1857; 1920 family list translation; baptisms: 1884 and 1914; marriages: 1879, 1881, 1892, 1906, 1909, and 1914; and deaths: 1889, 1891, 1892, and 1914. These B/M/D records are available on the familysearch.org site, but have not been indexed. I’ve also obtained a few individual records from the archives in Russia in an attempt to further my personal research.

I attended the AHSGR convention in Milwaukee and enjoyed the presentations and visiting with other attendees; however, no Schoenchen researchers were in attendance at the Area 6 Village Meeting.

Denise Grau

Co-Village Coordinator for Schoenchen

Schuck 2017 Village Report

I have had a few inquires this year, both through Ancestry and AHSGR for the village of Volmer and Schuck residents. I have replied that I have information on their family, if they could send a little more dates and data. Some people do not want to share anything, even if it means gaining information.

And again, same problem as ever, everyone wants information on those missing years; 1857-1900

For the village of Schuck, I now have in my possession, the missing pages from the 1857 census!

That is information on 52 more families!

Best of luck and health in the New Year

Cathy Hawinkels

Schuck & Volmer VC

Stahl 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Schwab 2017 Village Report

Very little to report. I have had 2 queries this past year; I was able to help both persons, however, neither replied to my request to obtain their data which could be added to the existing database.

In the interim, I now have ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and that has slowed me down. However, while there is no cure, it is not fatal in and of itself. It is a motor neuron disease and does not affect the brain. I have difficulties talking and swallowing but the fingers work just fine. To set everybody’s mind at rest, there is no reason for me to resign now.

There are no changes to the data that I have already forwarded to AHSGR at an earlier date.

Rolene Eichman Kiesling
VC Schwab

Shcherbakovka 2017 Village Report

It’s been another 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.

I purchased the records of the Lutheran Church of Shcherbakovka a few years ago and extracted the information into an easy to read- spreadsheet form.

Those records are available for $100 for a three-book set (Baptism, Marriage, and Death) available in either chronological order or alphabetical order. If your ancestors settled in Marion Co., KS; Ellis Co., OK; or Russell Co., KS, you may be interested in other soft covered, spiral bound books for churches, Declaration of Intentions; World War I Draft Registrations that I have extracted. Please contact me for a list of what is available.

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 are known as “Pleve Charts”. I sent the corrections to “headquarters” 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 at no charge: 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 generous 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

email – janflick@cox.net

Straub 2017 Village Report

I have had inquiries on these Straub families this year: Bopp and Schafer.

I translated Straub confirmation for years 1847 to 1868 for AHSGR. This information is now for sale at the AHSGR Bookstore. The Straub confirmations contain the following information: person who was confirmed, their birth date and father’s name. There are 637 confirmations. The birth dates start in 1831 and end in 1854. There are no birth records at the Russian archive for Straub for the years 1822 to 1845 so this fills in some missing information.

AHSGR has purchased Straub birth records starting in 1796. There are some missing records. These records are being translated. I am anxious to purchase these records from AHSGR as soon as they are available so I can add to my Straub files and connect more families. There are no maiden names on the 1834, 1850 and 1857 census records so these Straub birth records would fill in missing maiden names.

There are Straub death records at the Russian archive for the years 1865 to 1884 and Straub birth records for the years 1900 to 1907. I would like to get these.

My cousins, Leroy and Linda Schafer, have purchased Bopp and Schwabenland records for Straub from the archive.

I attended Brent Mai’s seminar in Fresno on Nov. 4. This seminar was about the 250^th anniversary of the arrival of Germans in the Volga. There was a section on Straub.

Sharon White

Straub VC

Straub 2017 VC report

I have had inquiries on these Straub families this year: Bopp and Schafer.

There are Straub death records at the Russian archive for the years 1865 to 1884 and Straub birth records for the years 1900 to 1907. I would like to get these.

My cousins, Leroy and Linda Schafer, have purchased Bopp and Schwabenland records for Straub from the archive.

I attended Brent Mai’s seminar in Fresno on Nov. 4. This seminar was about the 250^th anniversary of the arrival of Germans in the Volga. There was a section on Straub.

Sharon White

Straub VC

Straub 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

2017 Streckerau Village Repot

For work reasons I could not attend the Convention in Milwaukee, but I hope I can do it to the next in Hays.

I continue posting data about Germans from Russia in my facebook group Russiangermans Repository, and sharing it in so many groups and pages as possibly

I wish you all a great 2018.

Jorge Bohn

Susannental 2017 Village Report

I am currently working on adding pictures of all the ship records of village members who immigrated to the US to the Susannental Facebook page.

The data base contains 13080 individuals post immigration period and 5149 individuals in the pre-immigration period. Each individual’s sources of record information is included in the notes for each individual.

I have only had two requests for information. One I was able to assist, but the other one I was unable to make connections for at this time.

I have records for village members in the Kulberg Lists, Transport Lists, First Settler lists, 1798, 1813, 1834, 1857 census records, Personal Book records for the Wegner and Wasmuth surnames, birth records for the Wasmuth surname and Kemel Germany birth records for Schmidt and Asmus surnames.

If able to find donors willing to contribute, the Personal Books for the village would help many connect their families.

Village members intermarried extensively with the villages of Kind and Meinhard, so I have gathered much information about these villages also.

I have a web page and Facebook page.

Kerry Thompson

sstevee47@yahoo.com

Tarlyk 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Tiegenhoff (South Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Tilfis (South Caucasus) 2017 Village Report

· Any Caucasus information shared with me would be appreciated, I have much to learn.

Facebook page is moving slowly, watch for updates. AHSGR Caucasus Germans from Russia villages.

I encourage researchers to support efforts to obtain records from Russia and translation expenses. Consider donating to your village efforts.

We also need additional village coordinators.

Encourage your contacts to join and support AHSGR.

DNA is a valuable tool all coordinators and members should participate.

I plan to attend the Kansas convention, will be available for questions. Send your questions and challenges to me in advance.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Hert

deeehert@gmail.com

intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com

Urbach 2017 Annual Report

I became the Village Coordinator for Urbach on 7 Jun 2017. I have acquired the 1798, 1850 and 1857 censuses for Urbach. Immediately upon my appointment, I began working on obituaries (175), immigrations (294), naturalizations and other sources that indicated Urbach, Orbach, Lipow-kut or Lip-of-Gut and other spelling variations as a residence. I attended the Fairfield Institute’s conference in Chicago in July, as well as the Milwaukee Convention in August. I advocated that Urbach NOT be listed as a Catholic community, for the Village display. There was no one else with ancestors from Urbach that attended the Village meeting.

At convention, I spoke with Mila and she was not aware of any research being requested for Urbach.

I have had 2 email requests for information from Urbach, surnames in those requests included Zahn, Wagner, and Keinert/Kreinert and Mohr. I have also received a DNA match via FTDNA for a Műller ancestor and one for the Zahn/Wagner via AncestryDNA. I did need to clarify that the family was from Urbach, Russia and not the Urbach in Germany.

Dr. Mai had also sent a request for surnames that settled in Sheboygan for the Fairfield University website. I was able to provide him a list of 35 family names that immigrated from Urbach to Sheboygan. I also noted that the majority who came from Urbach appeared to have gone to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Respectfully submitted,

On angels’ wings,
Christina Zahn
New Berlin, WI

VC Urbach/Lipow-Kut/Federovka

President SE WI Chapter AHSGR

Warrenburg 2017 Village Report

Kukkus Kanton Translated records available through AHSGR

Laub – Births Vol 1 –1794-1825; Births Vol 2 1826-1833; Marriage and Deaths 1826-1833

Straub – Confirmations 1847-1868; Marriages 1826-1832; Census 1834

Warenburg – Family List 1874; Marriages 1826-1840

Records in process for the Kukkus Kanton

Bangert – Marriages and Births 1826-1841; Deaths 1826-1841; 1912; 1919; 1922

Dinkel – Family List 1768-1834; Marriages 1794-1811 and 1834-1863; Births 1834-1858

Jost – Births 1794-1864

Neu Laub – Family List 1920

Stahl am Tarlyk – Marriages 1835-1858 and 1871-1888; Deaths 1872-1885; Births 1794-1820; 18351861;1872-1883; Family list – 1874, 1885

Straub – Births 1795-1873

Warenburg – Deaths – 1826-1840 and 1841-1850; Confirmations 1826-1892;

Dodie Reich Rotherham, VC Laub, San Diego, CA

Patricia Gayol Windecker, VC Laub and Neu Laub, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Please see individual village coordinator’s annual reports for a complete list of all records available for their specific villages.

Volhynia (Polish) 2017 Village Report

Mabel Kiessling

Village Coordinator for Polish Volhynia & Volhynia

m.kiessling@shaw.ca

Volmer 2017 Village Report

And again, same problem as ever, everyone wants information on those missing years; 1857-1900

For the village of Schuck, I now have in my possession, the missing pages from the 1857 census!

That is information on 52 more families!

Best of luck and health in the New Year

Cathy Hawinkels

Schuck & Volmer VC

Warenburg 2017 Village Report

I have had inquiries on these Warenburg famiies: Andreas, Constanz (2), Eisner (2), Gobel, Lorenz (3), Kisling (2), Mahler, Molko, Nickel, Stumpf, Trippel.

I translated the following records for AHSGR: 1874 Warenburg Family List and Warenburg marriages 1826 to 1840. There are 367 marriages listed and 20 other villagers listed. These records are now for sale at the AHSGR bookstore. I have translated Warenburg deaths, 1826 to 1840 and Warenburg deaths, 1841 to 1850. These records should be available soon at the AHSGR bookstore, they are being edited.

AHSGR has purchased more birth, death and confirmation records. I have been told that other translators are working on these records.

There are early Warenburg birth records at the archive for the years 1794 to 1812. I would like to get these records and more 1885 Family Lists. I have 19 of the 1885 Warenburg Families Lists so far: Boos, Brott, Constanz, Gammel, Gobel, Horch, Kaiser, Kinzel, Klamm, Kramer, Leisle, Lehman, Lorenz, Schiffman, Simon, Roth, Vogt, Werner and Yost. Wayne Bonner, Balzer VC, told me there are marriage records for Warenburg 1862 to 1867 at the archive but they are listed as Balzer marriage records.

I attended Brent Mai’s seminar on Nov. 4 in Fresno. This seminar was about the 250^th anniversary of the arrival in Germans in the Volga. There was a section on Warenburg.

My cousin, Richard Kisling, has translated the Warenburg chapter of Olga Litzenberger’s book, German Protestant Settlements on the Volga. Some interesting facts from the Warenburg chapter are: Warenburg received its name from the German words “Ware” (goods) and “Burg” (city), since it had a warehouse here where the colonists received their allocations from the Russian Kontor. The first colonists were made up of 149 families (543 people) who came from Brandenburg, Wurttemberg, Holstein, Darmstadt and Prussia. There was a 200 meter underground tunnel from the church to the pastor’s house. This tunnel was used by the pastor when there was bad weather. The tunnel was also used to hide 4 leaders of the anti-Bolshevik revolt in 1919 and later they were able to flee from their pursuers. Richard has also received the Warenburg church organ specs and drawings from the manufacturer, E. F. Walker Orgebau in Germany. The church organ was installed in 1898.

Sharon White

Warenburg VC

2017 Yagodnaya Polyana Village Report

Once again, the number of emails this past year has been fairly steady. Interestingly it seems when I receive one request for a certain surname most likely there will be several more in a short period of time. Our database continues to grow as more people share their information.

The newsletter continues to be sent out 4 times per year. Fortunately, I now have Cheryl Siemens helping in the production of the quarterly issues. Once we figure out the logistics of both of us working on the database at the same time we will be sharing those duties.

The interest in the YP Facebook page continues to grow.

The Center for Volga German Studies (CVGS) and the Council of Northwest Chapters of AHSGR sponsored “A Celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the Founding of the colonies of Frank, Hussenbach, Kautz, Kolb, Norka, and Yagodnaya Polyana” in Leavenworth, Washington, April 26 to 28, 2017. Like last years’ event there was so much interest registration ballooned to about 140 attendees coming from all over the US and Canada. There were many interesting presentations and lots of time to visit. There was also an opportunity for people to have individual appointments with the village coordinators who were attending and we were all kept very busy. There were many descendants of YP settlers who were new to research so it made for an extremely interesting conference.

I attend the convention in Milwaukee and although there were not many attendees with roots in YP it was a very enjoyable time.

The Calgary Chapter sponsored a day seminar in September. Steve Schreiber was our guest speaker for the day. While the individual presentations were broad in their focus there was some specific information for YP researchers. In October Dr. Brent Mai was in Calgary presiding over a day conference: “Celebrating the 250^th Anniversary of the Founding of the Volga German Colony of Yagodnaya Polyana”.

A descendant of YP settlers, Valentin Konschuh, has done an exhaustive search and written a history of the Konschuh family and has made it available to researchers. Valentin lives in Germany.

It was a rather full year and 2018 is starting off just as busy.

Marlene Michel

Village Coordinator for Yagodnaya Polyana

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