Alexanderdorf Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Quiet year for Alexanderdorf
At one time Alexanderdorf was two separate villages – Alexanderdorf and the other named Hoh, the villages were located near the Nachoi River. Alexanderhoh was a daughter colony, founded in 1848 by 19 families from the mother colonies of Schwed, Schafer, Urbach, Stahl am Karaman and possibly others. Hoh was founded at a later date by families from Schwed, Stahl am Karaman, Rosenheim, Fischer, and Enders.
I have available nearly all published census records for these villages; contact me with questions.
I continue to search for data from previous requests. I have numerous resources in my expanding personal library and access to publications at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah. I also research Odessa3 which contains the EWZ records.
Numerous villages were named Alexanderdorf with spelling variations; they were located in the Volga and Caucasus. It is imperative researchers identify the correct location. The name Alexanderdorf is quite common and presents research challenges. Use caution. An Alexanderdorf (Volga) database is being populated as information is located. I am expanding the resource list as publications are identified.
The Family History Library (FHL) supervisor invited me to teach Germans from Russia information to their interns and staff. I invited Shari Stone, member of our local chapter and friend to assist. We teach once a week at the library. The goal is to educate staff to better serve their guests and to enhance knowledge of resources.
Please review the AHSGR villages which remain unadopted at this time, perhaps you can assist and become a VC or add a village or two to your list of responsibilities.
I will continue attending AHSGR conventions and be available to answer questions and share data.
Thanks for the support from fellow village coordinators and individuals.
Dee Hert
intermountianchapterahsgrblogspot.com
Intermountian Chapter Facebook
Alexanderdorf Hoh Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Quiet year for Alexanderdorf – At one time Alexanderdorf was two separate villages – Alexanderdorf and the other named Hoh, the villages were located near the Nachoi River.
Alexanderhoh was a daughter colony, founded in 1848 by 19 families from the mother colonies of Schwed, Schafer, Urbach, Stahl am Karaman and possibly others.
Hoh was founded at a later date by families from Schwed, Stahl am Karaman, Rosenheim, Fischer, and Enders.
I have available nearly all published census records for these villages; contact me with questions.
I continue to search for data from previous requests. I have numerous resources in my expanding personal library and access to publications at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah. I also research Odessa3 which contains the EWZ records.
Numerous villages were named Alexanderdorf with spelling variations; they were located in the Volga and Caucasus. It is imperative researchers identify the correct location. The name Alexanderdorf is quite common and presents research challenges. Use caution.
An Alexanderdorf (Volga) database is being populated as information is located. I am expanding the resource list as publications are identified.
The Family History Library (FHL) supervisor invited me to teach Germans from Russia information to their interns and staff. I invited Shari Stone, member of our local chapter and friend to assist. We teach once a week at the library. The goal is to educate staff to better serve their guests and to enhance knowledge of resources.
Please review the AHSGR villages which remain unadopted at this time, perhaps you can assist and become a VC or add a village or two to your list of responsibilities.
I will continue attending AHSGR conventions and be available to answer questions and share data.
Thanks for the support from fellow village coordinators and individuals.
Dee Hert
intermountianchapterahsgrblogspot.com
Intermountian Chapter Facebook
Alexandertal Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Gary Martens has agreed to become co-VC for Alexandertal.
Gary’s email is gpmartens@gmail.com.
Alt Elft (Fere Champenoise) Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
It was pretty slow for this colony as well in 2017 with only one exception.
I got in contact with one new AHSGR member whose ancestors derived from Alt Elft.
I was able to answer him a few (mostly generic) questions regarding the colony, and I also was able to help him out to establish his family tree back to Germany.
For my personal research, I’m thinking to purchase a few pages from the 1886 church registries for this colony from the State Archives of Odessa. Once I have done so, I will share them with AHSGR once I have done so.
Kind regards,
Manuel Goehring
manuel.goehring@germanrootsinrussia.com
Anton (Volga) Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Research for the village of Anton is on-going. We have worked with a few researchers and always willing to share and learn from others.
In addition to populating the database we are gathering information from obituaries, immigration, census, EWZ from Odessa3, and numerous publications. Movement among villages is also being studied.
DNA is being encouraged among the Anton researchers.
Anton records were purchased from Russia and translated for the years of 1834 to 1863. These records are of great value; including maiden names and parents. Contact us if you are interested in purchasing a set of these records.
Additional Anton records remain in the Russian archives for marriages, births, and personal records, etc. An Anton fund raising project is being established; if you are interested please contact the village coordinators.
Dr.’s Alexander, Jacob, and Mary Eichhorn published a book,” The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766. The book contains data on 33 families who went to Denmark before arriving in Anton. Both Village Coordinators have a copy of this book as well as the Family History Library.
The Family History Library is interested in expanding their knowledge and resources for the Germans from Russia heritage. I was invited to teach classes, I also invited fellow Intermountain Chapter member and friend Shari Stone. We teach once a week to staff and interested individuals.
Explore the CommunityFamilySearch.org site for your research challenges. Translation services are also available. Word your request to include the phrase “Germans from Russia.
We plan to attend AHSGR conventions and be available to answer questions and share data. An Anton binder has been given to AHSGR and will be updated annually.
Village Coordinator’s needed: Numerous villages remain unadopted at this time; perhaps you can assist and become a new Village Coordinator or add a village or two to your list of responsibilities.
Please feel free to contact us with questions and suggestions. We seek to expand the database and assist others with their research. Sincere thanks for the support from fellow village coordinators and individuals.
Anton Village Coordinators:
Dee Hert
Intermountain Chapter, Membership Chair
Intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com
Intermountain Chapter Facebook
Sharon White
Intermountain Chapter, Librarian
Awilovo Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I have been (and still am) very ill, so my ability to assist folks for Erlenbach and Awilovo was very limited during 2018. I received an inquiry about the parents of Fred (Johann Friedrich) Stoll (7 Mar 1866 – 22 Jan 1957) early in the year. I was able to find Fred’s obituary online at Newspapers.com, but it did not give the names of his parents. I found a passenger list that showed that Fred and his family were from Erlenbach, and they arrived in Baltimore in May 1912. I scoured through notes from another Stoll descendant (now deceased) and only found the names Johann Stoll and Maria Elisabeth [–? –] as his parents’ names, but there was no source documentation for this. A family history narrative written by my grandfather (Conrad Feit) in the 1960s indicated that the Freidrich Stoll family returned to Russia in the 1910s, but came back to the US. Unfortunately, this is all I could find to assist the researcher.
I received no inquiries from Awilovo researchers.
I have seen in the Volga Germans Facebook group that there are people looking for links between their US immigrant ancestors and their more distant Erlenbach and Awilovo ancestors. Because there are so few records available, I have not been able to be of much help. I have heard that there are a few pages of Awilovo church records that were purchased by AHSGR, but I have not heard the status of the translation of the records. I do not know if the few surviving pages of the Erlenbach church records have been purchased. The records from both colonies primarily cover the mid-1890s, meaning that there are one or two generations about whom we know nothing.
Kathryn Stahlman
BALZER Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
2018 was a particularly busy year for the Balzer group.
I continued indexing the Balzer records acquired in the previous year. This includes Communion records, baptism, marriage, and death records, and the 1897 census.
With the generous assistance from co-coordinator, Dr. Darrell Weber, we have begun to translate the 1897 census. It consists of 1,052 families entered in over 600 pages of documentation written entirely in Cyrillic script. Fortunately, the names retain their German spellings. Just recently, I was able to download a copy of the index to this census from the Volgadeutsche website which will help in the translation.
German origins for a few of the Balzer settlers who first went to the Danish colonies were identified. This includes Klein, Egner, Späth, and possibly Meyer.
Began sending German origins results to the German Origins coordinators. This includes families from Wolfernhausen who went to the Warenburg colony, and over 64 settlers who were listed as leaving Hopfgarten for various Volga colonies.
In cooperation with Marv Heckmann, coordinator for Neu Balzer, we determined which families in Balzer were resettled to Neu Balzer, and thus reconstructed much of the Neu Balzer first settler list. Enjoyed sharing information with other village coordinators.
Throughout the year, I was contacted by researchers from the United States, Germany, Russia, and most recently, Siberia. Pedigree (direct ancestral) charts were created for many of these researchers. This includes Eurich, Heckmann, Lein, Schwabauer and Rockel. Currently creating charts for a researcher in Siberia (Jakel and Bauer).
Expect this year to be equally busy and productive: 1) continue with the translations and indexing, 2) hope to complete finding the Balzer ancestors who were born or married in Denmark, and 3) order more Balzer records. The majority of records to date are maintained at the Engels Archives. The ones currently being ordered are from the Saratov Archives.
Will be sending all German origins results to the German Origins team, starting with my own direct ancestors so that all may take advantage of my over 20 years of finds.
May miss the annual convention because Diane and I are planning our first visit to Germany where she still has living cousins. Also, do our annual trip to the great LDS Family History Center where we have a time share within walking distance of the library and arrange to meet with other coordinators and members belonging to the Inter-Mountain chapter.
Wayne Bonner
Co-Coordinator Balzer Colony
Bangert Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Very slow year with a few helps.
A tough year for me as I have lost some loved ones but will continue to help those inquiries.
Paul Koehler, VC for Bangert and Stahl am Tarlyk
Bauer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Received materials and inquiries on the surnames of Muhlberger and Wagner. Bauer Village had four new members join this year. We are beginning communications with the Engel’s Archives to possibly purchase village records, especially anything post-1857 as this seems to be the biggest gap and barrier for individuals to connect their research to the existing Village records.
Respectfully Submitted,
Michael Buck
VC Bauer/Neu-Bauer
Beideck Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
This year has not had a lot of questions that I could help with. I have a very large data base going from early settlers to about 1857. I have found information on some Beideckers after that. I have answered many questions and I think helped people. I would be happy to continue as the VC but if someone younger would like to take over that would be fine.
John Lauck
Beresina Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Things have been really slow for Beresina. No inquiries came in for this colony in Bessarabia in 2017.
I was able to get my hands onto a copy of an extensive research report from a Dr. Gerstenberger, who in the 1970’s researched his family with roots in Bessarabia. Its quite extensive and consist a lot of other individuals and families besides the Gerstenbergers. Furthermore, I rediscovered an old picture of Beresina from the 1930’s (picture ppostcard) with some images of the colony on it (church, view onto the village from the nearby hill etc.).
This would probably qualify as upload material onto the AHSGR Beresina site.
Kind Regards
Manual Goehring
manuel.goehring@germanrootsinrussia.com
Blumenfeld Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Nothing new to report this year
Deb Dumler
Borodino / Bessarabia, S. Russia [Ukraine] Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I have sent to AHSGR and GRHS a set of 48 booklets filled with genealogy of Borodinoians from “A” to “Zzz”. It is a data collected of Borodino families since I became village co ordinator in the 1980s. Most of it can be found on my website, however, there are many additions such as photographs, maps and letters. Unfortunately, my software became too old and no longer works so what there is cannot be changed in anyway. I am in the process of making all my websites into paper form while searching for new software to continue placing information of my German-Russian heritage on the internet. At the present I am working on my paper copy of my paternal families. The Remmick / Roemmich / Remick / Remig is about 25 booklets and will be completed soon. This family migrated from Edenkoben / Germany and ended up in Worms / Odessa, S. Russia [Ukraine].
http://www.remmick.org/Borodino.Bess.Genealogly/index.html
Judy A. Remmick-Hubert
Brehning Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Having taken on the task of Kutter coordinator this spring, I have received no inqueries. Having found my great-grandmother Schneider- Zitterkopf was born in this village this is why I decided to add another village to my plate. I am now developing a data base which at this time is small due to a rotator cuff injury the last day of September. I learned that typing with one hand does not make a speed typist. So far, I have entered the First Settlers list and the 1798 Census. I started entering the 1834 Census before my accident but have not gotten back to normal as of yet. So it goes slow. My information pool at this time is small but growing and I am down at AHSGR headquarters two days a week as a volunteer, so I have use of the Library.
I did attend the convention in Hayes and had one person stop to see me for Kutter, we had been in contact before for names from Huck and now have started working on the name of Hanhardt in Kutter, because of the time period, 1858-1880, nothing has been found so far. I am now working on the Reifschneider name which I had an inquiry for Huck but found the name is in the villages Kukkus and Kutter. So this family could be from one of these other villages since I don’t have them in my Huck data.
I look forward to seeing you all at convention here in Lincoln. It should be great as this is our 50th year.
Pam Zitterkopf Wurst
Kutter VC
Caucasus Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
During this year I have had a few requests for information of which I have been able to assist. The Caucaus village activity remains slow, but I am hopeful the activity will increase as awareness and resources increase.
I am combining caucasus village reports as in many cases activity is slow and resources are limited. In the future additional records will be located and shared, it is our responsibility to ensure this task is completed. Collaboration with organizations with similar interests will expedite this process.
I am presently adding names, resources, and various information to my database. I add information from individuals seeking assistance and also gathering data from census records, and publications I can access at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City.
The Supervisor at the FHL invited me to teach Germans from Russia information to their interns and staff. I invited Shari Stone, member of our local chapter and friend. We teach once a week at the library; obviously there in no limit to the possible subjects we can present. The goal is to educate staff to better serve their guest and to enhance knowledge of resources.
CommunityFamilySearch.org is a valuable site for professional assistance for your challenging research issues; includes free translation. Use the term, “Germans from Russia” in your search request. Good GR advertising and the site is free.
I am attempting to locate newspapers pertaining to Germans from Russia, please forward names of these resources and links. I will compile a list and share.
Please review the AHSGR villages which remain unadopted at this time, perhaps you can assist and become a VC or add a village or two to your list of responsibilities.
Caucasus Villages I am researching at this time include:
Alexanderfeld
Alexanderdorf (North and South Caucasus)
Baku
Rosenfeld
Nalchik
Michaelsdorf
Marienbrunn
Lillienfeld
Kronental
Johannesdorf
Friedrichsfeld
Emmaus
Eigenheim
Eigenfeld
Tiflis
Karlsruhe
Blumenfeld
Tiegehoff
I plan to continue attending AHSGR conventions; available to answer questions and share data. I will also update village binder information annually.
I am slowly acquiring several surname charts from AHSGR, which are appreciated.
Movement was extensive in the Caucasus due to the civil strife and environmental factors, Villagers relocated to North and South America; attention needed in South America.
Appreciation to village coordinators and individuals who continue to assist and share.
Dee Hert
intermountainchapterahsgrblogspot.com
Intermountain Chapter Facebook
Dietel Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Surname requests I worked with this year were Bauer, Busch, David, Engelmann, Foos, Kindsvater, Kramer, Lackmann, Leichner, Michel, Miller/Muller, Ruff, Reichel, Reichert, Schadt (Schaat), Stieber, Strecker, Weibert, Weinmiester, Zitterkopf.
I attended the convention in Hays, Kansas.
Wladimir Bohm requested my help with birth records for his project ‘Resettlers from the Mother Colony Dietel to Alt-Schwindt’. Out of 52 heads of households, I was able to provide 20 birth records.
Maggie Hein shared some more Brunnental records that mention Dietel that I have entered into the Dietel database.
Many thanks to Dona Reeves-Marquardt for translating the Dietel Baptisms 1870-1884 (I still need to enter nearly 3000 births for years 1871-1884 into the database) and the Dietel Marriages 1836-1904 (these have been entered and were also translated by D. Michael Frank). And many thanks to Brent Mai for purchasing all these very valuable records (that also included Deaths 1870-1916) for our future generations. Of these records, I have 192 more deaths to enter for the year 1909; and 119 births for 1911. As of this writing, there are 16,228 individuals in the Dietel database.
Kevin Rupp from AHSGR recently obtained Dietel baptisms 1870-1884 and Dietel family lists from 1908-1918.
The Dietel Facebook page now has 257 members and growing!
Co-VC, Don Soeken, has a booklet about the history of Dietel written by Olga Litzenberger and translated by Jacob Stewart. He has copies available for sale; please contact him at donsoeken@gmail.com for more information.
Posted on our Dietel Facebook page from Karen Hergett on 1 July 2018:
“Three years ago, I met Karen Bouton at the AHSGR convention in Billings, MT. She was working on entering the information from the available parish records into a database. I asked her about entering the available census records and she said well that’s going to require a little help. I decided at that time to partner with her to work on entering the census data.
I’m happy to announce that all the data from the 1798, 1834, 1850, 1857 and 1874 Dietel census books has been entered into the database!
We have also been entering Pleve charts as they are made available to us and the following Pleve charts have been merged with the census records: Foos, Grauberger, Hildermann, Krug, Lackman, Mill, Pietsch, Reichert, Ring, Spreuer, and Steinmetz. I believe Karen B. is working on the Kindsvater chart and we will merge it when done.
The Pleve charts have really helped piece the families together because they contain maiden names and list marriages and births that the census may not reflect.
I’ve also been working on matching and merging parish records to the census records. It’s a bit tricky with the repetitive and limited names in the village but so far, I’ve matched over 4,000 of the 10,000 parish records. (That was from Feb 2018. I’m sure Karen B.’s current number is much higher). This is where Pleve charts can help verify that we have the correct “Johann George” and “Maria Catharina”.
Anyone who has additional Pleve chart(s) that would be willing to loan us a copy it will really help as we continue merging the parish records with the census records.
There’s also a time gap between the last census and the start of the parish birth records so that makes connecting a little more difficult, but Karen B. is working on obtaining additional records that can help fill in that gap.
Our end goal is to have all the available data for Dietel in the database allowing us to easily search and print reports for those doing research. It’s a giant family tree!
Blessed and honored to have been a part of this project.”
I thank Karen Hergett from the bottom of my heart for all her assistance in growing our Dietel database. She passed away in November of 2018; she was only 57 years old.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Bouton
Co-VC Dietel Village
Dietel Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
We have had a very good year as the History of Dietel by Olga Litzenberger was translated by a professional translator from St. Lake City. The book chapter is available to anyone who wants to order it from me. As we all know the cost of getting information written and translated was quite expensive. The book is $20.
I have also placed many articles on the Dietel Facebook page. We are also now placing new and old obituaries on the page so that Dietel folks can review the names for themselves in their search for ancestors. I have found that after you make a request to Karen one can place the request on the Facebook page and there may be relatives who can help with information.
I visited Dietel, Russia, this past year and was overwhelmed with memory connections. It made the past come alive in my mind. When it was time to leave I wanted to stay longer to take in all of the old village still left like it was when my family left for New York and Ellis Island. Dietel has a museum and many items related to the past history of Dietel. There was even a relative of my Kindsvater family still living in Dietel.
I would recommend to everyone to please visit your village before you get too senior to travel. The walkways and stairs are not very user friendly so one has to be careful. The younger the better to be able to walk around the old village. I found the Brent Mia tour excellent and would recommend that one consider going this summer if you can swing it. The members of Brent’s staff spoke Russian, so we were able to understand everything that was said in Russian. The hotels were excellent, and the food was wonderful. The courtesy of the tour guides was a blessing as they were very supportive and helpful. I found that going there opened my mind up to many new insights and caused a desire to dig deeper into my past for information. My grandmas came alive for the trip and the memories still linger on several months later.
My CoCoordinator, Karen Bouton has also been very busy building a Dietel network of all Dietel people and including those from other villages.
Don Soeken
Village of Dietel
Co-Coordinator
Dinkel Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
The Dinkel/Tarlyakovka report: Another slow year. I had 2 requests for information; which i supplied. I had 3 names that Hqs. sent out requesting info about the town. I replied 3 times to the addresses and have still not received a reply. Oh, well. I will be at the convention this year. I will have all my paper material regarding the town. I am handing it into Hqs or any volunter!!!!!! After 35 years, I am sure someone can do a better job than me. Auf weidersehn. Leroy Nikolaisen
Dönhof Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I continued with research and adding to the data base for Dönhof families. I was able to help with several requests for information for the following families: Knaus, Deines Kaiser, Steinbrecher, Stromberger, Strauch, Baus, Erbes, Bechtholdt, Keller, Rutz, Fendel, Lohrengel, Kraus, Miller/Müller, and Lai. I was able to complete most requests, with the exception of a couple of those needing information between 1860-1900. In some instances, I was able to complete the family line from the first settler to Russia the immigrant family coming to America.
I continue to add additional books for research and also use some of the more popular websites for genealogical research to add to family data. Data from those websites must be checked carefully for documentation, but they can be useful in confirming information.
An interesting side note were two requests from individuals whom were adopted and looking for birth family information. Both individuals had German-Russian ties. I was able to help one determine the German-Russian name and general family information.
Kudos to Tibi Maw for formatting and publishing our quarterly newsletter, Die Doenhoffer, and to Lee Ann Schlager and Fabian Zubia Schulheis for their research and contributions during the year. Copies are sent by email to those researching Dönhof, and Neu-Dönhof families. Please contact me if you would like to be included in our email list for newsletters. Queries and contributions are always welcome for inclusion in a newsletter.
I continue to be interested in DNA German-Russian connections through my DNA testing. I have helped several cousins with ties to Dönhof and Balzer with family history information and family tree data. Two of the genealogical sites are now able to trace my DNA back into more specific areas of Germany and Russia, both confirming my roots in Hesse and the Saratov area. I think DNA testing and the refinement of data as more people are tested, will result in better determination of our ancestors’ specific origins.
A continuing goal for 2019 will be growing the Dönhof database and looking into possibly ordering more records for Dönhof and being able to link more families from their German origins to the immigrant families that came to America.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Kaiser
Co-cordinator for the village of Dönhof
Dreispitz Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Hi: I visited Dreispitz last August. I took some pictures. The villages are all looking the sane after one sees several. The area around Dreispitz seemed pretty flat.
This year has been another slow year with only a few inquiries, all of which I was able to assist with family lines of Galyardt/Galliardt, Steinle, Heinze, Beisel, Herbel & Vollert/Wollert.
I attended the annual AHSGR convention this year which was held in Hays, Kansas. While there I learned lots and listened to some wonderful presentations.
During the village area discussion, I assisted several Dreispitz descendants looking for information on their family linage and also obtained some new family information.
Thanks to Don Soeken Co-Cordinator for the village of Dietel, we now have a great little booklet about the history of Dreispitz written by Olga Litzenberger and translated by Jacob Stewart. He has copies available for sale and can be contacted at donsoeken@gmail.com for more information.
I’m still hoping that with the money that Timothy Montania bequeathed we will be able to obtain some Shcherbakovka and Dreispitz village records from the Russian archives.
Don SOEKEN
Mark Wills
Village Coordinator for Dreispitz
Enders Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
This year I’ve heard from descendants researching the following surnames: Hardt, Deckert, Mueller, I love hearing from descendants and helping to make connections. It’s especially fun to hear from distant cousins.
In addition to the 1st settlers list (1766), Enders currently has census and family lists available for 1798, 1834, 1850, 1857, and 1874. In addition, Enders descendant Waldemar Mueller, Germany, has kindly donated information for Mueller households 1897 and 1920.
The Enders Facebook page remains a great way for descendants post old family photos and documents, and to find others researching the same surnames.
Beth R Davenport (Mueller) volgadeutsch@gmail.com
Enders Village Coordinator
Erlenbach Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I have been (and still am) very ill, so my ability to assist folks for Erlenbach and Awilovo was very limited during 2018. I received an inquiry about the parents of Fred (Johann Friedrich) Stoll (7 Mar 1866 – 22 Jan 1957) early in the year. I was able to find Fred’s obituary online at Newspapers.com, but it did not give the names of his parents. I found a passenger list that showed that Fred and his family were from Erlenbach, and they arrived in Baltimore in May 1912. I scoured through notes from another Stoll descendant (now deceased) and only found the names Johann Stoll and Maria Elisabeth [?] as his parents’ names, but there was no source documentation for this. A family history narrative written by my grandfather (Conrad Feit) in the 1960s indicated that the Freidrich Stoll family returned to Russia in the 1910s but came back to the US. Unfortunately, this is all I could find to assist the researcher.
I received no inquiries from Awilovo researchers.
I have seen in the Volga Germans Facebook group that there are people looking for links between their US immigrant ancestors and their more distant Erlenbach and Awilovo ancestors. Because there are so few records available, I have not been able to be of much help. I have heard that there are a few pages of Awilovo church records that were purchased by AHSGR, but I have not heard the status of the translation of the records. I do not know if the few surviving pages of the Erlenbach church records have been purchased. The records from both colonies primarily cover the mid-1890s, meaning that there are one or two generations about whom we know nothing.
Kathryn Stahlman
Frank Russia Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
We had around 75 requests during the year, which is similar to previous years. When we receive a request, our goal is to generate an ancestor report (in standard Ahnentafel format) that provides the requestor with a list of their ancestors back as far as we have data. We usually have enough information to provide a complete genealogy back to the First Settlers, and in many cases, we have researched the initial settler families back several generations prior to their emigration to Russia. The report includes footnotes for the sources used to generate the report so that the recipient is able to see where we obtained our data.
Doris continues to do all of the maintenance of our collection of documentation and also continues to do all of the updates to our genealogy database. The main collections that were added to the database this year was the Frank 1834 Census (translated by my cousin Tatjana Hein and edited by me), and the heads of the households from the Frank 1887 Family List (translated by me). As information on Frank and Kolb people is gleaned from the Brunnental Communion Registers, that is added. Any new German Origin research is added, as are any record images that I am able to obtain that verifies research and translations done by others. We also try to add any new information that we learn from people who request research help.
Our goal is to acquire images of original source documents whenever possible. We have had considerable success with this. There are many items that seem to have been lost, for example church records for Frank prior to 1839 haven’t been found, birth or death records for Kolb prior to 1873 haven’t been found, and we haven’t seen any evidence that the 1897 census for either village survived. The one item that seems to have gone missing, but definitely must have existed at some point because it is included in Einwanderung Vol. 1, is the first 81 families on the Frank First Settler’s List. To the extent that we have evidence that specific documents exist and can be acquired, we have acquired them.
Collecting all of these documents results in what seems to be an endless supply of translating projects. I work on the Russian language church records for Frank occasionally when someone has a research request that can’t be completed without checking the original records. The most difficult project I currently have is the 1887 Frank Family List. The good news is that in addition to the information about the residents in 1887, the list contains added notations about events that occurred up through the early years of the 1900s. The added information includes birth, marriages, deaths, military service, and emigration. The bad news (from my perspective since I don’t actually read Russian) is that the added information is written by multiple different scribes, some with indecipherable penmanship. It is an amazing amount of information, but with 1,200 pages to get through, it will be a long-term project.
My other ongoing project is the Brunnental Communion Registers. A few years ago, the Center for Volga German Studies (CVGS) acquired copies of Volume 2 of the 1870-1884 Communion Register for Brunnental. Communion registers provide birth, marriage and death details, grouped by family, on all individuals living in the village during the time frame of the register. Initially, I started translating only the pages for people who had immigrated from Frank or Kolb. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has translated records that what seems initially to be a small manageable project gradually takes over all of your spare time. AHSGR expressed an interest in publishing the translation (and other translations done from CVGS-acquired records). Barry Heimbigner graciously agreed to edit my translation, and I am grateful for all of his corrections to my work. Jim Weibert assembled the work into the standard AHSGR format and prepared an index, and after many edits, it was finally published in early 2018. People continued to move to Brunnetal from a wide variety of other villages in the decades after the initial settlement, and where they came from, and when they moved, is documented in the register. While all of this work was happening on Volume 2, I was finally able to get the images for Volume 1. The archive had initially been hesitant to allow copying of the book because of the poor condition of the pages (edges and corners of pages are curled, and in some cases torn off.) I’ve been working on translating Volume 1, with the intent that it will also be published by AHSGR. As I did with the previous volume, I share each translated page with Sherie Stahl and with the VC of the settler’s original village to get feedback on how the information fits in with the data they already have. The mystery of the 1860-1869 Brunnental register was also solved during 2018. I had received conflicting information about whether this book actually existed. AHSGR was able to determine through one of their contacts that it did exist, and I donated the money to AHSGR to cover the acquisition cost. The images are unfortunately not good quality and it will be difficult to translate this volume. The families in the 1860-1869 book are arranged in the same order as the families in the 1870-1884 book, so I prepared an index that crossed references the two books in the hopes that this would help with the translation process.
As the Brunnental project evolved, I decided it would be a good idea to have the original images of the Resettlement Lists. When the daughter colonies were established in 1857, lists were made of the families in each mother colony who were relocating to each daughter colony. These lists are organized by mother colony, so in order to construct a “First Settler’s List” for each daughter colony, you have to locate all of the separate resettlement lists for the mother colonies. Many of these records are in the Samara Archives collection on Family Search. If you have looked at those microfilms, you know that the Revision Lists and the Resettlement Lists are not indexed, and really are not organized in any way that enables you to find anything quickly. There is a listing of the Revision Lists and matching film numbers on the CVGS web site, but you still have to scroll through the film until you find what you are looking for. Jeremy Landt mentioned in his VC report that he was working on an index of those films. I was glad to hear that because I think it will save everyone a lot of time if there is an index available.
I continue to research the German Origins of Volga settlers. This was a good year with many interesting new finds and mysteries solved. My main focus is on settlers in Frank, Kolb, Walter and Hussenbach, and this year included some work on Norka and Yagodnaya Polyana settlers, and a few other villages. If I have a good hint about where a settler in another village may have come from, I will look at those. What do I mean by “good hint”? If the only information you have is the place name given in the “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767” books, that isn’t always a good hint. For example, I was recently researching these four families, stated to be from these four places according to the Einwanderung books: Braun (Walter) from “Deckerbergheim”, Doell (Walter) from “Höhenbergheim”, Rehn (Kolb) from “Gebershein”, and Arndt (Kolb) from “Heckeberg”. In fact, all four families can be found in the parish records of Bergheim (formerly Heckenbergheim). Caution must be exercised when using the place names in the Einwanderung books and you should not assume that a place name given in a published translation or on a web site is the “real” place. Parish records and Familienbücher should be consulted to verify any location.
We still have settlers in Frank and Kolb whose origins locations remain undocumented. Occasionally, someone will ask me about one of the families that has not been found yet, so I wanted to come up with a way to keep track of the status of German Origin research that has not been completed, to provide more information about research that has been completed, and to make that publicly available to anyone who was interested in it. I’ve seen examples from other researchers who used Trello Boards to track and display family history information, so I decided to give that a try. It is a work in process, and like every other genealogy project that I pick up, it is taking much longer than I anticipated. It is a public board, and you do not need a Trello account to view it: https://trello.com/b/cNmHrNFf/work-in-process-german-origins-village-of-frank-russia
I continue to provide content for the CVGS Facebook page. If I locate new German Origin information, after sharing it with the VC for that Volga village, I post it on the CVGS Page. The number of followers of the CVGS Page has grown from 2,624 at the beginning of 2018 to 2,949 at the end of 2018. I also continue to maintain the Frank-Kolb Russia Database Facebook Page. The number of followers of that page has grown from 1,255 at the beginning of 2018 to 1,387 at the end of 2018. I also set up a linked Facebook group so that Frank and Kolb descendants can communicate with each other. It is a closed group and membership is limited to people who have a family connection to Frank or Kolb.
Doris and I both attended The Friends of the Center for Volga German Studies workshop, “Resources for Learning about your Volga German Heritage” in November. There was a day of presentations on Saturday and an afternoon of genealogy research assistance on Sunday. I gave a presentation called “Volga German Research: Documenting your ancestor’s lives in America and Canada”. This presentation is based on a short guidebook that I put together to assist people who are just starting out with Volga German genealogy research. I find that frequently people who want to trace their ancestors back to Russia have not researched all of the source material here in America, and don’t have enough information to successfully connect to their ancestors in Russian records. An updated version of the handout is here, and if you find it useful, you are welcome to share it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q60gwrhcd264mpz/Basic_VG_research_12_18_18.pdf?dl=0
I attended the 2018 AHSGR Convention in Hays, Kansas and gave a presentation on how to do German Origin research. The convention, as usual, was very, very, busy. The turnout at the convention was excellent this year. Between giving my presentation three times, attending meetings, trying to help various people with their genealogy research, and meeting with the Walter and Hussenbach VCs to go over our shared genealogy research, I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. I made my convention handouts and photos of this year’s display available to anyone who wasn’t able to attend the convention here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t4xex0w6950grmn/AABC0Rb48rHqZrRjEhPR8R85a?dl=0
While at the convention, I was made aware of the fact that Dr. Elena Ananyan had done a project about the Russian Military Draft, using the records of Kolb as an example. She wrote a 6-page description of the draft process, which discusses related issues such as the impact of draft policies on emigration. She mentions documents about people requesting permission to emigrate, and requesting permission to return to the village, in addition to discussing the documents that directly relate to the draft such as the granting of exemptions from service and casualty lists. The description is in the AHSGR Library along with copies of the Kolb draft lists for 1874-75, 1879-1900, 1902, and 1910-1911. We have many of the draft lists in our collection already (and a few more years than what is listed here) because they were part of the document collection that Doris had acquired ten years ago. There are also draft lists for years that we didn’t have, but unfortunately these are unreadable (too dark, too blurry, portions cut off). I have made several inquiries about getting better quality images, and about making Dr. Ananyan’s description more widely available, but have not received a response.
Maggie Hein
Village of Frank
Visit us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FrankKolbRussia/
Friedenberg Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Happy New Year everyone!
I have nothing new to report. Have not been contacted by anyone for assistance.
Kindly,
Brenda Silvey
V/C for Friedenberg
Friedensdorf, Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I am the village coordinator for Friedensdorf. Friedensdorf is now known as Khmel’nyts’ke, Zaporiz’ka, Ukraine, Lat: 47.1656N, Long: 35.8999E (according to https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/history_culture/maps_villages/GermansfromRussiaSettlements.pdf)
In the past year, I had no inquiries or time for new research. But I welcome correspondence from anyone interested in this small village in the Molchna Colony.
John Niessen (jsniessen@yahoo.com)
Göbel Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
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. Map 6, coordinates B7
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 2018 AHSGR Convention. I received six direct requests in 2018; I was not able to help very much due to lack of village records in the times of interest.
Ben Markel
Goebel Village Coordinator
Grimm Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
We had another good year for Grimm researchers. We have been able to help several individuals and families tracing their family connections to Grimm families. We maintain a Grimm data base that grows every day. We are able to trace most Grimm families back to the first settlers. Last year we completed, published and distributed the 1897 Grimm census.
This past year we discovered, translated (by Rick Rye) and have ready for distribution the “Grimm 1904 Taufbuch” (a birth & baptism registry). This book is a registry of the year, month, day, and hour of births, baptism to include the place (Church, Prayer House or Parsonage). It included the parents, the Godparents and pastors.
We are now in the process of doing the same with the General Register of Members of Evangelical-Lutheran Community of Lesnoi Karamysh [Grimm] for the years from 1906 to 1920 which is contained in several books.
We continue to be challenged by gaps in the census records and the spelling of family names. We are very concerned that our work may be in vane because AHSGR HQ has no program to store and make available the Village data base records. Several have already been lost.
Respectively Submitted
Grimm VC’s
John Groh and Henry Schmick
Huck Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
2018 has included many instances of deja vu communication with Huck researchers interested in information about their ancestors during the Huck ‘dark-no know archival records period’ of 1858 to 1888. Other than encouraging the correspondent not to give up because surely associated records will be found in the future to help answer their questions, we now hope such records will be found in our lifetime and continue searching myself. Contacting new AHSGR members who expressed an interest in the village is exciting and assisting them is always rewarding because many are just beginning their quest. On the other hand, it is curious that some new members never respond to my inquiry with an offer to help their research.
Vern Kembel, Abbotsford BC, shared some very interesting information about Kolb and Huck families he has acquired to help unscramble the Kembel/Hempel confusion and information about those family names. To a Russian speaking scribe taking the census records, hearing the kuh and huh sounds of those two surnames plus because the Cyrillic letter that begins Huck (with its huh beginning) is a Г that has a kuh sound for a speaker of Russian only adds to what appears as confusion. Known differences in the translations of various Huck census records have long been a subject of interest, with different translators of the original records adding to the questions. Someday we will surely close that chapter.
One significant project for research of the Huck Village has been the funding agreement to order two of the seven known archival documents that were described in a message from Mike Meisinger to all AHSGR village coordinators. Funds to purchase the 1844-1847 Death Record and the 1905-1913 Engagement Book have been forwarded to headquarters and Kevin Rupp will order those records after he obtains permission to use the new reserved funds. The next step is to translate those documents and record the information in the provided template and the submit them to headquarters for consideration to add them to the AHSGR store
As co-coordinator, I continue to add to my data bas,e but it is slow going as I volunteer at headquarters two full days a week. There never seems to be enough hours in the day.
We have had a few questions this last year and as Dennis has said they seem to want the impossible, information from the black hole period, 1858 thru the 1880’s. Names I have fielded were Bohl, Weigand(t), Hemple/Kembel, Koehler/Keller and Huck. Most have spouses’ names listed but are looking for husbands with the first names of Phillip, Conrad, Heinrich, Oswalt and Georg, there is always a list of possible ones to choose from, but they have little to no information other than the year of birth and a name. Sometimes we get lucky and can help and others I feel bad that I can’t do anything.
Dennis Zitterkopf
Coordinator of Huck
Pam Zitterkopf Wurst
Co-Coordinator of Huck
Johannestal (Odessa) Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I had three queries about Johannestal GR’s last year, most of whom I could provide some help. I also mourn the loss of my triple cousin, Irene Hintz Johnson of Richland, WA. She was my mentor and with the help of a small team of other GR’s mapped out the history of many Johannestal families. I really miss her.
Ray Heinle
Gilbert, Arizona, USA
KI7FGC
Josefstal Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Fellow Researchers:
I had about 5 inquiries this year from folks associated with Josefstal, a small Catholic village close to Kamyshin.
Other than that, not much else to report.
I still work on the English translation to our Josefstal history book. Hopefully it will appear in the next year.
I did notice that some of you have obtained the 1897 census for your village. May I ask where you found these and does anyone know what villages are available for the 1897 census?
Thank you!
Edward Gerk
Jost Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
This year we have helped researchers with the following surnames: Brase (Bräse), Flack, Peterson, Horn, Weber, Törmer (a/k/a Thörmer/ Dermer) We love hearing from descendants and helping to make connections. It’s especially fun to hear from a distant cousin.
The biggest challenge continues to be the lack of information after 1857. With the incredible assistance of the George Lauren Foundation, Dodie Rotherham has been able to retrieve multiple Kanton Kukkus records from Russia. It’s important that we continue the search before these precious records are lost forever. Sadly, years of fading and water damage often make records illegible. We remain hopeful that missing records will be located; however, many are lost or hopelessly misfiled. Russian research is incredibly expensive; we appreciate donations.
While Beth continues to work with Dodie on translations, Dave has been busy adding birth records, census records and family information to the Jost database.
The Jost Facebook page remains a great way for descendants post old family photos and documents, and to find others researching the same surnames.
Beth R Davenport (Mueller) volgadeutsch@gmail.com
Dave Halm davehalm@heartofiowa.net
Jost Co-coordinators
Kamenka Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
This year I received a request by regular mail –which is unusual. An SASE was enclosed.
Received an email from someone who was going to Saskatchewan, Canada to see who the relatives Roth, Lang and Krentz were who had the same DNA as his.
I received information from Argentina about my Schwindt relatives who were one of the first settlers in Hinoyo.
I had much correspondence with a Jacob Schulmeister of Iowa and found that he is a distant cousin going back to the First Settler List of Kamenka.
I finally found from where my Wiesner ancestors came – Baden Germany. It was quite a journey finding the family that had various spellings: Wiesner, Wisner, Wiseners, Wiehner, Wissner, Wesner by the translators. It’s a good thing that I had the birth years. Thanks to the website familysearch.org. The family was found in a recently digitized collection of church records of Freiberg. Baden. Germany.
Now I know the name of the Father of the family. He did not arrive in Kamenka with the Wiesner family of five children and their Mother.
Rosemary Wiesner Larson
https://web.archive.org/web/20000816153546/http://www.webbitt.com/volga/kamenka/
Katharinental Samara Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
January 14, 2019
GENERAL
I attended the convention in Hays.
I assembled and sent village file collections for Rosental and Katharinental to Headquarters. Sarah said that the files were entered into the village files at Headquarters, but they are still not posted on the AHSGR web site.
Several inquiries were received resulting from my contact information listed on the Village Coordinator list on AHSGR web site.
I continued work on indexing the LDS films for 1850 and 1857 to facilitate finding original census records.
ROSENTAL
The 1874 Rosental Family Lists were obtained with the help of Mila Koretnikov (using personal funds). I translated the lists and am presently checking my work for errors. A template was made for the Family Lists to record the translated entries.
I have Rosental census records of 1850, 1857, 1861 addendum, the 1874 Family Lists and most of the translated mother colony census records for 1857.
I verified / found the mother colonies of the 1874 Rosental households.
Mother colonies were
Beauregard (Boregardt), Boisroux (Boaro), Ernestinendorf, Kaneau (Kano), Katharinenstadt, Kind, Orlovskaya, Paulskaya, Philippsfeld, Reinwald, Schäfer, Schulz, Urbach and Yagodnaya Polyana.
1874 Surnames were
Altenhof Amheiser Asmus Bachert Bardt Bauer Becker Belsch Blank Bornemann Böttcher Boxhorn Bullig Damer Deis Eberhard Ebert Ehrenberg Eichler Emich Engel Engelmann Erfurth Erlenbach Ermisch Ertel Fellinger Felsing Fischer Franz Gann Gensch Genze Christ Ginter Golzwart Gottfried Gross Grune Gutjr/Gutjahr Hardt Hartmann Heldt Helm Herber Hergert Hilgenberg Hoffman Hoppe Ichtritz Janson Jost Karle Karlin Keller Kieller Kind Klemann Klotzbach Klunk Knatz Knaub Koenig König Krach Krämer Kremer Krieger Krupe Lehmann/Leiman Lehr/Lier Lemp Leonhardt Lichtner Lieder Lier Lies Mai Markgraf Markus Maurer Meinik Merker Nebert Niesing Otto Paster/Baster Paul Reichert Reimer Reisch Reisner Retz Riemer Sabelfeld Sauer Schiefferstein Schmidt Schnegelberger Schneider Schönknecht Schugart Schwartz Schweigert Sonegrin Specht Stallbaum Steinbrecher Sterkloff Strack Susdorf Tit/Dit Trautwein Vogel Wamschans Weber Weimann Welsch Winshu Wittenbeck Wormsbecher Ziborius Zorn
I continued support from last year for the Wiedenbeck and Markgraf families of Rosental and found the missing link to earlier ancestors using the 1874 Rosental family list.
An inquiry was received for the Kelch family (Catholic) of Rosental. The only family with this name was found in Rosental, Crimea (a Catholic village). I sent some information to the inquirer.
Several new members email addresses were received, and I sent welcome emails. It appears from ancestral names that they were not descendent from colonists of Rosental am Jeruslan nor Katharinental, Samara.
KATHERINENTAL
Birth records for the Peter Keil family of Katharinental were obtained with the help of Mila Koretnikov. Information for Katharinental is scarce and the entire birth records of 1905 – 1917 (in Saratov) would be worth obtaining.
These are two small villages. Information is scant. Care is required to not confuse them with other colonies with the same names.
Jeremy Landt, Village Coordinator, Katharinental, Samara and Rosental, Samara
2 Rabbit Rd.
Santa Fe, NM 87508
505-690-3000
jeremysfnm@gmail.com
Kautz Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I continue to make progress with Kautz genealogy. Regarding Kautz church records, I am still missing Kautz births 1850 through March 1899. The lack of these records means that I cannot definitively place individuals born within this time frame with their respective parents. Death records of children during this period do list their parents.
I am currently rebuilding the Kautz web pages which were removed by Comcast as part of a massive change in policy direction.
The Kautz database now has 37,043 individuals listed. Many new additions were made based upon individuals listed in various Merkel resources. Many of those additions come from the Kauz family, a founding family of Kautz (after the first mayor for whom the village was named). This family moved in entirety to Merkel colony about 1788.
The Lutheran Volga-German villages nearest to Kautz are Dietel, Kratzke, Merkel, Bauer, Grimm, and Hussenbach.
The Volga-German Institute at Fairfield University now provides some specific information about the German origin of most of the founding families of Kautz (and many other villages). I will follow up in an attempt to provide additional generations of genealogy for these families using German church records. The URL for this site is: https://vgi.fairfield.edu/surnames. Thank you, Brent Mai and others for providing the results of your research.
The primary first-settler families of Kautz and their German origins include Benzel (Ensheim, Rheinland-Pfalz), Frank (Schriesheim), Frickel (Ottenheim), Fuchs (Isenburg), Glockhammer (Golen), Gradwohl (Ottenheim), Hardt (Isenburg), Hermony (Hüffelsheim), Kauz (Leiningen, Ungstein, Pfalz), Klein (Freimersheim), Knaub (Großhausen , Kr. Bergstraße, Hessen), Michel (Baden Gutheim), Neubauer (Haßloch, Kr. Bad Dürkheim, Rheinland-Pfalz), Ostwald (Eich, Kr. Alzey-Worms, Rheinland-Pfalz), Popp (Isenburg), Reiter (Gemunden, Kurpfalz), Riel (Germany), Schreiner (Zweibruchen), Schumann (Loch Place, Kurpfalz), Stahly (Waldangelloch, Kr. Rhein-Neckar, Baden-Württemberg), and Weber (Pfalz).
Henry Schmick continues to provide relevant current obituaries from multiple cities. Many of those obituaries come from Billings, Montana, Laurel, Montana, and surrounding towns. I subscribe to the Billings Gazette, receiving obituaries electronically on a daily basis.
I continue to reply to requests for information. Some require minimal effort. Others, however, can result in a week’s worth of research. In return, I normally am able to glean additional family information from those requestors.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael Frank
Kautz Village Coordinator, AHSGR
Klein Walter Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Village Coordinators:
Michael Fyler, Walter database (waltervillage@yahoo.com)
Mary Jane Bolton, Researcher and Facebook Moderator (walter4vc@gmail.com)
Byron Wagner, Obituaries and Researcher (bybarb@hotmail.com)
Jean Roth, Historian (jeanroth@juno.com)
Inventory:
Censuses: 1798, 1834, 1857, Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Vol. IV
Volgograd-Walter Church Records:
Births- 1839-1900, 1903-1913
Marriages- 1839-1853, 1894-1895
Deaths- 1839-1870
Walter Class Register of Zemstvo School 1884-1889, 1891-1893, 1896-1898, 1900-1901
Extracts from the Family list on the military duty
Tagenrog Jeisk Walter Related 1879-1885 Related Births/Christenings, Marriages and Deaths
Brunnental 1870-1886 Communion Register
2018
Michael Fyler, Mary Jane and Byron Wagner attended the 2018 AHSGR Convention in Hayes Kansas. The folks in Kansas did an excellent job and the convention was well attended. Most of our time was spent with several attendees researching their Walter roots, as well as working with other Frank Canton Village Coordinators.
In 2018 we had over 30 inquiries, researching surnames including, Beck, Benner, Bretthauer, Burkhardt, Döll, Gies, Hamburg, Hill, Ills, Kister, Miller, Schössler, Wagner, Walter, Wiederspahn.
The Walter, Russia Facebook page is active; I appreciate all that Mary Jane and Maggie Hein offer to making page interesting.
The Walter database includes 57,950 individuals and it continues to grow as individuals are added from the Volgograd-Walter church records, obituaries, Brunnental Communion Records, new AHSGR members as well as from the contacts we make on Facebook. We continue to encourage non-members to join AHSGR. On occasion we receive a list of names from AHSGR headquarters of new members who identify Walter as one of their ancestral villages.
Mary Jane has begun sending out emails to those who have listed an email address welcoming the new members and providing basic information and how to contact us etc.
We are constantly searching for additional records or documents to connect the missing years in our church records.
Respectfully submitted by Michael Fyler
Kolb Russia Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
We had around 75 requests during the year, which is similar to previous years. When we receive a request, our goal is to generate an ancestor report (in standard Ahnentafel format) that provides the requestor with a list of their ancestors back as far as we have data. We usually have enough information to provide a complete genealogy back to the First Settlers, and in many cases, we have researched the initial settler families back several generations prior to their emigration to Russia. The report includes footnotes for the sources used to generate the report so that the recipient is able to see where we obtained our data.
Doris continues to do all of the maintenance of our collection of documentation and also continues to do all of the updates to our genealogy database. The main collections that were added to the database this year was the Frank 1834 Census (translated by my cousin Tatjana Hein and edited by me), and the heads of the households from the Frank 1887 Family List (translated by me). As information on Frank and Kolb people is gleaned from the Brunnental Communion Registers, that is added. Any new German Origin research is added, as are any record images that I am able to obtain that verifies research and translations done by others. We also try to add any new information that we learn from people who request research help.
Our goal is to acquire images of original source documents whenever possible. We have had considerable success with this. There are many items that seem to have been lost, for example church records for Frank prior to 1839 haven’t been found, birth or death records for Kolb prior to 1873 haven’t been found, and we haven’t seen any evidence that the 1897 census for either village survived. The one item that seems to have gone missing, but definitely must have existed at some point because it is included in Einwanderung Vol. 1, is the first 81 families on the Frank First Settler’s List. To the extent that we have evidence that specific documents exist and can be acquired, we have acquired them.
Collecting all of these documents results in what seems to be an endless supply of translating projects. I work on the Russian language church records for Frank occasionally when someone has a research request that can’t be completed without checking the original records. The most difficult project I currently have is the 1887 Frank Family List. The good news is that in addition to the information about the residents in 1887, the list contains added notations about events that occurred up through the early years of the 1900s. The added information includes birth, marriages, deaths, military service, and emigration. The bad news (from my perspective since I don’t actually read Russian) is that the added information is written by multiple different scribes, some with indecipherable penmanship. It is an amazing amount of information, but with 1,200 pages to get through, it will be a long term project.
My other ongoing project is the Brunnental Communion Registers. A few years ago, the Center for Volga German Studies (CVGS) acquired copies of Volume 2 of the 1870-1884 Communion Register for Brunnental. Communion registers provide birth, marriage and death details, grouped by family, on all individuals living in the village during the time frame of the register. Initially, I started translating only the pages for people who had immigrated from Frank or Kolb. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has translated records that what seems initially to be a small manageable project gradually takes over all of your spare time. AHSGR expressed an interest in publishing the translation (and other translations done from CVGS-acquired records). Barry Heimbigner graciously agreed to edit my translation, and I am grateful for all of his corrections to my work. Jim Weibert assembled the work into the standard AHSGR format and prepared an index, and after many edits, it was finally published in early 2018. People continued to move to Brunnetal from a wide variety of other villages in the decades after the initial settlement, and where they came from, and when they moved, is documented in the register. While all of this work was happening on Volume 2, I was finally able to get the images for Volume 1. The archive had initially been hesitant to allow copying of the book because of the poor condition of the pages (edges and corners of pages are curled, and in some cases torn off.) I’ve been working on translating Volume 1, with the intent that it will also be published by AHSGR. As I did with the previous volume, I share each translated page with Sherie Stahl and with the VC of the settler’s original village to get feedback on how the information fits in with the data they already have. The mystery of the 1860-1869 Brunnental register was also solved during 2018. I had received conflicting information about whether this book actually existed. AHSGR was able to determine through one of their contacts that it did exist, and I donated the money to AHSGR to cover the acquisition cost. The images are unfortunately not good quality and it will be difficult to translate this volume. The families in the 1860-1869 book are arranged in the same order as the families in the 1870-1884 book, so I prepared an index that crossed references the two books in the hopes that this would help with the translation process.
As the Brunnental project evolved, I decided it would be a good idea to have the original images of the Resettlement Lists. When the daughter colonies were established in 1857, lists were made of the families in each mother colony who were relocating to each daughter colony. These lists are organized by mother colony, so in order to construct a “First Settler’s List” for each daughter colony, you have to locate all of the separate resettlement lists for the mother colonies. Many of these records are in the Samara Archives collection on Family Search. If you have looked at those microfilms, you know that the Revision Lists and the Resettlement Lists are not indexed, and really are not organized in any way that enables you to find anything quickly. There is a listing of the Revision Lists and matching film numbers on the CVGS web site, but you still have to scroll through the film until you find what you are looking for. Jeremy Landt mentioned in his VC report that he was working on an index of those films. I was glad to hear that because I think it will save everyone a lot of time if there is an index available.
I continue to research the German Origins of Volga settlers. This was a good year with many interesting new finds and mysteries solved. My main focus is on settlers in Frank, Kolb, Walter and Hussenbach, and this year included some work on Norka and Yagodnaya Polyana settlers, and a few other villages. If I have a good hint about where a settler in another village may have come from, I will look at those. What do I mean by “good hint”? If the only information you have is the place name given in the “Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767” books, that isn’t always a good hint. For example, I was recently researching these four families, stated to be from these four places according to the Einwanderung books: Braun (Walter) from “Deckerbergheim”, Doell (Walter) from “Höhenbergheim”, Rehn (Kolb) from “Gebershein”, and Arndt (Kolb) from “Heckeberg”. In fact, all four families can be found in the parish records of Bergheim (formerly Heckenbergheim). Caution must be exercised when using the place names in the Einwanderung books and you should not assume that a place name given in a published translation or on a web site is the “real” place. Parish records and Familienbücher should be consulted to verify any location.
We still have settlers in Frank and Kolb whose origins locations remain undocumented. Occasionally, someone will ask me about one of the families that has not been found yet, so I wanted to come up with a way to keep track of the status of German Origin research that has not been completed, to provide more information about research that has been completed, and to make that publicly available to anyone who was interested in it. I’ve seen examples from other researchers who used Trello Boards to track and display family history information, so I decided to give that a try. It is a work in process, and like every other genealogy project that I pick up, it is taking much longer than I anticipated. It is a public board, and you do not need a Trello account to view it: https://trello.com/b/cNmHrNFf/work-in-process-german-origins-village-of-frank-russia
I continue to provide content for the CVGS Facebook page. If I locate new German Origin information, after sharing it with the VC for that Volga village, I post it on the CVGS Page. The number of followers of the CVGS Page has grown from 2,624 at the beginning of 2018 to 2,949 at the end of 2018. I also continue to maintain the Frank-Kolb Russia Database Facebook Page. The number of followers of that page has grown from 1,255 at the beginning of 2018 to 1,387 at the end of 2018. I also set up a linked Facebook group so that Frank and Kolb descendants can communicate with each other. It is a closed group and membership is limited to people who have a family connection to Frank or Kolb.
Doris and I both attended The Friends of the Center for Volga German Studies workshop, “Resources for Learning about your Volga German Heritage” in November. There was a day of presentations on Saturday and an afternoon of genealogy research assistance on Sunday. I gave a presentation called “Volga German Research: Documenting your ancestor’s lives in America and Canada”. This presentation is based on a short guidebook that I put together to assist people who are just starting out with Volga German genealogy research. I find that frequently people who want to trace their ancestors back to Russia have not researched all of the source material here in America, and don’t have enough information to successfully connect to their ancestors in Russian records. An updated version of the handout is here, and if you find it useful, you are welcome to share it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q60gwrhcd264mpz/Basic_VG_research_12_18_18.pdf?dl=0
I attended the 2018 AHSGR Convention in Hays, Kansas and gave a presentation on how to do German Origin research. The convention, as usual, was very, very, busy. The turnout at the convention was excellent this year. Between giving my presentation three times, attending meetings, trying to help various people with their genealogy research, and meeting with the Walter and Hussenbach VCs to go over our shared genealogy research, I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. I made my convention handouts and photos of this year’s display available to anyone who wasn’t able to attend the convention here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t4xex0w6950grmn/AABC0Rb48rHqZrRjEhPR8R85a?dl=0
While at the convention, I was made aware of the fact that Dr. Elena Ananyan had done a project about the Russian Military Draft, using the records of Kolb as an example. She wrote a 6-page description of the draft process, which discusses related issues such as the impact of draft policies on emigration. She mentions documents about people requesting permission to emigrate, and requesting permission to return to the village, in addition to discussing the documents that directly relate to the draft such as the granting of exemptions from service and casualty lists. The description is in the AHSGR Library along with copies of the Kolb draft lists for 1874-75, 1879-1900, 1902, and 1910-1911. We have many of the draft lists in our collection already (and a few more years than what is listed here) because they were part of the document collection that Doris had acquired ten years ago. There are also draft lists for years that we didn’t have, but unfortunately these are unreadable (too dark, too blurry, portions cut off). I have made several inquiries about getting better quality images, and about making Dr. Ananyan’s description more widely available, but have not received a response.
Maggie Hein
Village of Frank
Visit us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FrankKolbRussia/
Kraft Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
This is my second year as the Village Coordinator of the Village of Kraft. In 2018 we had 9 queries for information on ancestral family members coming from Kraft to either Canada or the United States and some to both. This was consistent with 2017 when we also had 9. We were able to help 8 in various degrees and 1 we were not able to identify names requested from our data base. Surnames requested were Meier, Reinhard, Bertram, Schwindt, Karg, Koch, Yauck, Sagel, Loos/Loose, Schreiner, Schmidt, Asmus, Gritzfeld/Kritzfeld, Eckhardt, and Schwab. In three cases I worked in conjunction with other VCs.
It was my intention to attend the convention in Hayes in 2018, but an unscheduled operation in late June slowed me down last summer. We do plan on doing better in Lincoln, Nebraska this current year. As a substitute our local chapter in Calgary, Canada did have some interesting monthly meetings relating to genealogy. On April 7, 2018 we held a local screening of the film “Waiting for Waldemar” with one of the films directors which is a must see for any German from Russia. The Calgary Chapter also hosted an all-day conference and banquet on September 8th, 2018 to celebrate its 40th Anniversary. Speakers included Dr. Richard Scheuerman from Richland, Washington whose topic was types of grains used by the Germans from Russia that transformed the plains of Northwest USA and Canada. He was followed by Dr. Elvire Necker-Eberhardt from Medicine Hat, Alberta discussing “Migrants of the Past – History of the Bessarabian-Germans 1815-1840”, and followed by Sherry Pawelko, Executive Director of AHSGR headquarters in Lincoln about the advantages of becoming a member.
Resources I have included:
1/A 8725 name database of people who resided in Kraft primarily up to 1866 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/ Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 by Igor Pleve Vol 1 and 4. Unable to get Vol 2 and 3 as unavailable at this time.
6/ Spreadsheet of Lutheran Church births 1848-1866 and 1902, marriages 1895 and 1905 and deaths 1904 recently translated.
Projects for 2019. This winter with the help of my wife Heather, we began integrating the 2700 names on the spreadsheet listed in 6/ above into the database 1/ above. 90 percent is complete and our database has gone from 6400 names up to 8725. The last 10 percent has some discrepancies which include name variations, for example: Becker/Backer/Borger/Burger or Gritzfeld/Kritzfeld to name a few. There are duplications we believe. Also 33 records show a baptism date which is before in time to the birth date. Errors or transpositions we do not know as we do not have any source documents to verify. Currently we are thinking of ways to proceed and any advice from other VCs would be welcomed to finish the last 10 percent with a high degree of accuracy.
Respectfully submitted by Gerald & Heather Sieb
Krasnojar Samara Volga Russia Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Unfortunately, there is nothing new to report this year. There were no new members from this village that joined AHSGR and there has been no new comments on the face book page.
Susie Weber Hess
VC Krasnojar Village coordinator
Reinwald Samara Volga Russia Village report
There were 2 new members to AHSGR for this village that I contacted and never got a response. There has been little activity on the face book page except for some quips about being a genealogist that had been posted by members. I am aware that members of the face book page have been communicating together so they are sharing information and have been encouraging them to share what they have collected on the Reinwald page.
Susie Weber Hess
VC Reinwald Village coordinator
Kutter Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Having taken on the task of Kutter coordinator this spring, I have received no inqueries. Having found my great-grandmother Schneider- Zitterkopf was born in this village this is why I decided to add another village to my plate. I am now developing a data base which at this time is small due to a rotator cuff injury the last day of September. I learned that typing with one hand does not make a speed typist. So far, I have entered the First Settlers list and the 1798 Census. I started entering the 1834 Census before my accident but have not gotten back to normal as of yet. So, it goes slow. My information pool at this time is small but growing and I am down at AHSGR headquarters two days a week as a volunteer, so I have use of the Library.
I did attend the convention in Hayes and had one person stop to see me for Kutter, we had been in contact before for names from Huck and now have started working on the name of Hanhardt in Kutter, because of the time period, 1858-1880, nothing has been found so far. I am now working on the Reifschneider name which I had an inquiry for Huck but found the name is in the villages Kukkus and Kutter. So, this family could be from one of these other villages since I don’t have them in my Huck data.
I look forward to seeing you all at convention here in Lincoln. It should be great as this is our 50th year.
Pam Zitterkopf Wurst
Kutter VC
Pammyzi47@gmail.com
Langenfeld Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Roger Burbank, VC for Rosenfeld and Langenfeld.
Laub, Tralyk, Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
We receive numerous requests for information/assistance from families in Germany and the US related to Laub and several other villages in the Kukkus Kanton. Like many other German Village groups in Russia, the villages in the Kukkus Kanton are very closely connected through marriages and their home areas in Germany. All of our requests have come via Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
There continues to be confusion between the villages of Laub and Lauwe (frequently referred to as Laube). These two villages are separated by Jost, but the spelling and pronunciation tend to confuse researchers. This confusion necessitated the need to learn surnames from Lauwe as well as surrounding villages.
We have continued purchasing records for the Kanton and now have all records, at least known records, for the villages of Laub and Jost. Our major issue is getting records translated and edited. We have developed a format for all the records we have been dealing with – marriage, birth, death, confirmation, and require all agreeing to translate for our kanton to use these templates designed for the specific records.
I was fortunate to find a professional German Script reader to assist with translating and editing some very difficult records. Also, Beth Davenport, Jost village coordinator, has translated numerous records this past year which has helped tremendously.
We will continue to search for and purchase records for our kanton and for other villages as the opportunity arises. All records we purchase become the property of AHSGR and will be sold through the organization.
We continue to search for VC’s and others willing to translate and edit records as they become available.
For an updated list of records purchased by AHSGR check the quarterly newsletter articles written by Kevin Rupp.
Dodie Reich Rotherham
Patricia Gayol Windecker
Lauwe (Volga) Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I had six queries relating to Lauwe last year, three of which were from the same person. Some of the requests provide almost no information on which to get started, other give exceedingly complex queries that take a great deal of time just to figure out what the researcher wants to know. Sigh!
I notice that the 1886 Lauwe Family list is finally listed on the website. That eliminated the awkward “yes, have the List but you can’t have it!”
More BMD records for Lauwe are hopefully on the way.
Ray Heinle
Gilbert, Arizona, USA
KI7FGC
AHSGR Village Coordinator for Lauwe, Volga, Russia
http://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/lauwe/lauwe.html
Merkel Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
As a new village coordinator for Merkel, I continue to make progress with genealogy for that village.
I am currently rebuilding the Kautz web pages, adding Merkel information in the process, which were removed by Comcast as part of a massive change in their policy direction.
The Kautz/Merkel database now has 37,043 individuals listed. Many new additions were made based upon individuals from various Merkel resources. Many of those additions come from the Kauz family, a founding family of Kautz (for which the village was named). This family moved in entirety to Merkel colony about 1788.
The Lutheran Volga-German villages nearest to Merkel are Kautz, Dietel, Kratzke, Bauer, Grimm, and Hussenbach.
The Volga-German Institute at Fairfield University now provides specific information about the German origin of most of the founding families of Merkel (and many other villages). I will follow up in an attempt to provide additional generations of genealogy for these families using German church records. The URL for this information is: https://vgi.fairfield.edu/surnames. Thank you, Brent Mai and others for providing the results of your research.
The primary first-settler families of Merkel and their German origins include Adam (Neuburg, Württemberg), Brickmann/Bridgemann (Alteno, Kr. Dahme-Spreewald, Brandenburg), Bruntz (Liograd near Hamburg), Butherus, Flohr (Holstein, Germany), Foos (Pfalz), Gieseke (Hildesheim), Gross, Hauf, Margheim, Pister, Rein, Schild, Schlager, Specht (Altstein, Pomerania), and Wegelin.
I continue to reply to requests for information. Some require minimal effort. Others, however, can result in a week’s worth of research. In return, I normally am able to receive additional family information from those requestors.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael Frank
Merkel Village Coordinator, AHSGR
Messer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
2018 was a busy year. I was able to help several people with their research and, with the help of the newly translated 1897 Messer Census, even help some trace their lines all the way back to a “first settler”.
Several new documents were published during the year. A beautiful Messer village map created by Alexander Weber was donated by his niece Maria Weber. For many of the houses the name of the occupant is shown. As mentioned above, the 1897 Messer Census translation was published. It includes the following families:
| (Altach, Arnbrecht, Bauer, Becker, Betz, Brauer, Brug, Deisel, Dinkelacker, Emmert, Fischer, Geis, Haas, Hardt, Hart, Hebel, Heidel, Heidenreich, Henkel, Herdt, Hergenhein, Hert, Kaiser, Kaufman, Konrady, Kraus, Lang, Laubach, Laufer, Lehr, Leichner, Lipps, Lorenz, Manweiler, Masch, Meininger, Meisinger, Meisterling, Meng, Mersch, Michel, Nuss, Ochsenhirdt, Ostreich, Rady, Reisbich, Risch, Schaefer, Schanz, Scheibel, Scheidelman, Schlegel, Schmidt, Schneider, Schotz, Schreiner, Schuman, Seifert, Spater, Ulrich, Wagner, Weber, Weibert, Weigand, Werth, Wiederhold, Wilmann, Wolf, Zeig, and Zeller) |
An Index to Messer marriages 1827 – 1892 was also completed and made available for purchase from the AHSGR bookstore. Greta and Don Beavers completed a Master Index to the Messer Census records of 1767 through 1857. They donated it to the AHSGR and it is also now available for purchase from the AHSGR bookstore. We hope to obtain additional funds to purchase and translate more Messer records during 2019.
A was able to attend the AHSGR convention in Hays and host a supper for Messer and Neu Messer descendants. 17 people were in attendance.
I was contacted by Maria Weber in Germany, (who donated the Alexander Weber map mentioned above), who has a German social media page for Messer. We have been able to exchange a great deal of information and help facilitate new connections between relatives in the United States, Germany, and Russia.
Maggie Hein has once again provided new information on the German origins of some of the Messer colonists. Thank you, Maggie!
Two Messer / Neu Messer Newsletters were sent out during 2018.
The Messer distribution list and data base continue to grow.
Mike Meisinger
Village Coordinator
Molochna Colonies Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I am the village coordinator for Friedensdorf. Friedensdorf is now known as Khmel’nyts’ke, Zaporiz’ka, Ukraine, Lat: 47.1656N, Long: 35.8999E (according to https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/history_culture/maps_villages/GermansfromRussiaSettlements.pdf)
In the past year, I had no inquiries or time for new research. But I welcome correspondence from anyone interested in this small village in the Molchna Colony.
John Niessen (jsniessen@yahoo.com)
MOOR (AKA KLUTCHI) Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
2018 was productive for Moor researchers. Inquiries were received from researchers in the United States, Germany, Argentina, and Russia, and I was able to answer most of their requests.
I was able to utilize the Moor church records acquired in 2017 to good use to create pedigree (direct ancestral) charts for Moor researchers (Braun, Wunder). Having the records indexed saves lots of research time.
Copies of the completed indices have been submitted to headquarters and subsequently added to the Moor web site maintained by Lincoln.
Because of the time devoted to indexing the new Russian records, the German Origins project for Moor was put on temporary hold. Nevertheless, origins were identified for three settlers: Anna Catharina Schremser (Mo 14) who was born in Denmark, Anna Catharina Stay (Mo14), and Anna Catharina Fischer (Mo68a). I expect to renew this research in 2019 and complete the search in the Danish colonies. To date, I have at least partial information (baptism or marriage) for 47 of the original 70 founding families.
Copies of the complete German Origins lists will be sent to the German Origins committee to add to the growing list of found origins in Germany.
I do not anticipate receiving any new Moor records from Russia in 2019, but one never knows. Not certain yet about attending the 2019 convention. My wife and I might be experiencing our first trip to Germany at convention time.
Wayne H. Bonner
Moor VC
whbonner@aol.com
Neu-Balzer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
The year of 2018 has been a great year to find information from the village of Neu-Balzer. I was able to purchase the entire 1897 census of the village which includes approximately 681 names. Of course, all the information was written in Russian and needed to be translated. I was fortunate enough to find a cousin, 6 generations removed, who lives in Germany and she translated the information from Russian to German and then into English. Without the help of Catherine, it would have been very expensive to have the census translated. She has also been very helpful in finding other vital information from the village records. Her grandmother, aunt, and father were moved from Neu-Balzer to Kazakhstan in 1941.
The following is a list of sur-names and the number of people living in Neu-Balzer when the 1897 census was taken: Barthuly 34, Bauer 8, Becker 9, Eurich 36, Grasmich 56, Grun 23, Heckman 16, Heft/Schneider 18, Heil 22, Huber 9, Jakel 38, Kaehm 26, Kaiser 48, Keller 42, Kling 88, Messer 22, Popp 13, Reichert 9, Robertus 34, Rockel 18, Rohrig 9, Roth 9, Stohr / Stehr 32, Stumpf 10, Weber 17, Weishem 17, and Wuckert 8.
I have also worked with Wayne Bonner who is the VC for the village of Balzer. Most of the people who settled in Neu-Balzer around 1863 came from Balzer. We are trying to connect each family in the 1897 census to their roots in Balzer. Wayne has been and will continue to be a great resource for our village.
I am also trying to connect the families that settled in Denmark between 1759 and 1766 and then went to Balzer. I have been using the Eichhorn book entitled “The immigration of German colonists and their further emigration to Russia in the years 1759 – 1766”. Between Catherine and myself we have identified at least 4 families that left Denmark and settled in Balzer. On a personal side, I have been able to trace my family from Germany to Denmark and then to Balzer as a result of the research done this year.
We also have the following records: obituaries, draft registration records, immigration records, naturalization records, and other church records from both Neu-Balzer and the United States.
The goal for 2019 is to make public the 1897 Neu-Balzer census through the AHSGR headquarters. The booklet will be placed in the library and bookstore in Lincoln. More research is needed in finding settlers who stayed in Denmark before making the trip to Balzer and those leaving Balzer for the new settlement of Neu-Balzer.
Marvin Heckman
VC for Neu-Balzer
Neu-Bauer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Received materials and inquiries on the surnames of Muhlberger and Wagner. Bauer Village had four new members join this year. We are beginning communications with the Engel’s Archives to possibly purchase village records, especially anything post-1857 as this seems to be the biggest gap and barrier for individuals to connect their research to the existing Village records.
Respectfully Submitted,
Michael Buck
VC Bauer/Neu-Bauer
Neu Doenhof Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
We had 20 new villagers join our village(s) this year, mainly through referrals, most from the U.S. and Argentina. I was reminded that before Neu-Doenhof was a daughter village (1857-1863) Doenhoffers migrated to Gnadenfeld (1855), Rosenburg (Umet 1847) and Unterdorf (1854) in large numbers.
I fulfilled research requests for Eichler/Steinbrecher; Stoll; Flegler; Schoenhals/Held, Eichler/Reinhardt; Kraus; Lohrengel; Kisselman/Lind; Lind/Mueller; and Detterer/Lind. Mueller and Keller are still waiting in the wings. By far the most difficult was Kisselman/Lind. Widow Lind Kisselman came to Denver in the 1890s, before the sugar-beet industry began and long before detailed information was available on ship manifests. She married quickly to a non-GR, then very shortly to another non-GR and was dead by 1903. I finally connected her to one of the earliest GRs in Denver and a later arrival in Windsor.
I purchased the Neu-Doenhof Church Records (baptism, marriages and deaths) for my library. I also acquired the Birth, Marriage and Death records from Fulton County, Ohio, for my library. The three main permanent settlement areas for Doenhoffers in order, in this country, were Rush County, Ks., Fulton County, Ohio, and Weld County, Colo.
This year marked our seventh-year newsletter with a new graphics person, Tibi Maw, joining the staff. Contributing writers besides myself have been Tibi M., Karen M-K, Fabian Z-S, Elena M-V, a website provided by Patti F and, Jessi V.
I attended the convention in Hays City, Ks., where our own Paul Deines volunteered, was vetted and joined the board of trustees. Paul’s grandparents, Michel and Elisabetha Erbes Deines were from Neu-Doenhof.
Added to our Neu-Doenhof binder were: a copy of the oldest, to date, confirmation certificate 1877; a copy of a handwritten autobiography by Jakob Flegler in English for entrance into Midland Academy just three short years after arrival in this county in 1902; a copy of a biography written by the d-i-l of Elisabeth Erbes Deines following conversations about her life in Neu-Doenhof; photo of Peace Lutheran Church in Tacoma, Wash., built by folks from Kolb and Neu-Doenhof; and an interview, 1947, with Henry Kurtz (Joh. Heinrich Kurtz) of Mitchell, Nebr., about the North Platte [Irrigation] Project.
Prof. Fabian Zubia-Schultheis and German Sack stayed with me in Portland in October in order to do research at CVGS. While here Fabian, using my library, used my Familienbuch Gross—Zimmern volumes to research additional information about those Doenhof families who emigrated from Denmark. We published that information in the 18.4 newsletter. German Sack disclosed that he had some Russian language skills. He is in the process of translating a Neu-Doenhof Trudarmee list of about 150 wartime names from the Bogoslovlag Camp in the Urals.
My database consists of 13,982 souls.
The goals for 2019 are endless. I will continue to work with village descendants who want to get started on their genealogy or who run into seemingly unsolvable problems. I would love to have one of our FB user try out the Argentinean FB page. I have another book I want to acquire from Germany. I would love to have someone volunteer to start inputting the first settlers’ list. I would love more contributors to our newsletter. I would love to add Gnadenfeld, Rosenburg and Unterdorf Doenhoffers to our village list and, on and on it goes.
We mourn the loss of one of our most supportive members Delores Giebelhaus Schwartz. Delores maternal grandmother was a Kaiser Doenhoffer and Delores was always generous with her time and money. She inadvertently donated $1,000 to the Neu-Doenhof Church records when it was still thought they were from Doenhof. To the end she waited for the publication of the Doenhof Baptism records 1815-1852. She looked forward to attending this 50th convention having attended the first one in her thirties with her mother.
I continue to communicate with the Doenhof Village Coordinator(s).
Lee Ann Schlager
Neu-Doenhof Village Coordinator
Neu Messer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
2018 was a busy year. I was able to help several people with their research and, with the help of the recently discovered 1897 Neu Messer Census, I was even able to help a few people trace their families back to Messer and from their back to a Messer “first settler”.
We were able to obtain, translate, and publish the 1904 Neu Messer Births and Baptisms. It is now available for purchase from the AHSGR bookstore. We discovered a copy of the 1857 Messer census in Volgograd that had notes indicating which families left for Neu Messer in 1862 and 1863. We are working on getting that published and hope it will be available sometime during 2019. As mentioned above we found a source for the 1897 Neu Messer Census and purchased and translated the pages for the Beckel, Betz, Lehr, Mersch, Seifert, Schantz, Dinkelacker, Masch, Meisinger, and Geis families. We hope to compete the translation of this document and make it available for purchase in 2019. The following families will also be included in the final document; Arnbrecht, Beisel, Brauer, Busch, Dick, Diel, Eichler, Ehrlich, Emmert, Goebel, Goetz, Gomer, Guttmann, Hardt, Heidenreich, Hein, Henkel, Kaiser, Karl, Laubach, Laufer, Leis, Lipps, Manweiler, Meng, Michel, Mueller, Nuss, Ostreich, Radi, Reiswig, Schneibel, Schlegel, Schmidt, Schneider, Schultheis, Ulrich, Weber, Weibert, Weigandt, Wiederhold, Willmann, Zeig, and Zeller.
A was able to attend the AHSGR convention in Hays and host a supper for Messer and Neu Messer descendants. 17 people were in attendance.
Two Messer / Neu Messer Newsletters were sent out during 2018.
The Neu Messer distribution list and data base continue to grow.
Mike Meisinger
Village Coordinator
Oberdorf Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
During the year, different queries and material regarding the surnames Rutz, Asmus, Grauberger, Yauk and Kölln have been received. Also, two descendants of ancestors from Oberdorf traveled to Russia and contributed photographs of that trip, especially of Oberdorf.
Elena Mercedes Vega
Buenos Aires, Argentina
https://www.facebook.com/groups/183076058528244/?ref=bookmarks
Elena Vega
Paulskoye Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I continue to work with Irma Merkel, my unofficial village coordinator counterpart in Germany. She continues to seek my assistance on behalf of GRs in Germany in Russia. Irma provided me a report she obtained about the history of Paulskoye schools.
I wrote an article published in my local newspaper titled “When Volga Germans Worked Sanilac’s Fields”. It covers the beginning of the sugar beet agriculture in Sanilac County, Michigan and the role Volga Germans played, particularly Nebraskan Volga Germans. Link: https://sanilaccountynews.mihomepaper.com/articles/when-volga-germans-worked-sanilacs-fields/
I received just one inquiry from within the US. Alexandria Orton sought Balzer family info in her attempt to find a village of origin for her ancestors. After research it seems Paulskoye Balzers were not her family, but I provided Balzer leads for her to follow-up with other VCs.
My remaining inquiries concerned the nearby village of Fischer which has no VC at the moment, and the village of Enders for a woman from my community who was completely new to genealogy and needed close guidance.
For Fischer I worked with Veronica Burggen whose Baustian ancestor migrated to Kansas in the 1870s. Thank you Maggie Hein for the referral. The other person I worked with was John Heibel whose ancestors were Gaus and Justus. Both of their ancestors had first been Danish colonists; the Eichhorns’ book about colonists from Germany to Denmark and then Russia proved of great value. One of the needs this village has is the 1834 Fischer Census. This census exists, but whether AHSGR or Dr. Brent Mai has procured a copy I do not know. It would be great to have this resource available for purchase.
Finally, I worked with Laurie Jones, an acquaintance in my community who was new to genealogy and sought my help with her family research. Her Rusch and Mueller ancestors were from Enders but required research in Reinwald and Grimm too. My thanks go out to fellow VCs Beth Davenport, Susie Hess, and Henry Schmick for their valuable help.
Respectfully submitted.
Tim Weeder
Village Coordinator for Paulskoye
Pfeifer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Requests were received for the surnames: Burgardt, Sommer. Hefner, Leonhardt, and Jacobs.
On hand I have the Pfeifer Census for 1798, 1834, 1850, 1857 and the First Settler List.
I have some information for the time period after 1857 census that has been gleaned from online sources as well as received information.
I have helped with requests for other villages.
Rosemary Larson
https://web.archive.org/web/20010517173351/http://www.webbitt.com/volga/pfeifer/
Reinhard Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
No changes or inquiries for the Village of Reinhard in 2018
Brenna Stokes
Reinhard Village Coordinator
Rosenberg Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
As in previous years there were comparatively few enquiries for this village – not surprising as the Village only came into existence in 1852 and the population suffered in the 1940s from Stalin’s purges. Many of the genealogical researchers who contact me know already that their ancestor came from Rosenberg (or Umet in Russian) but only have knowledge of a birth there in the 1870s or 1880s and sometimes even later. What they want to find out is how to connect back to already existing records in the mother colonies or to obtain information about family connections going back further in time. It is unfortunate that at this point there is nothing for Rosenberg after the 1857 census apart from a few years marriage and birth records round the turn of the 20th century. In particular the current lack of the 1897 census for Rosenberg and surrounding villages is a real genealogical limiting factor.
However, it is worth repeating part of an email sent to me a year ago by Patti Sellenrick about Rosenberg and surrounding villages as it includes an appeal with which some Rosenberg descendants may feel they could help.
Patti writes: ‘We have births 1902, 1912, 1913, 1914, deaths 1904, 1913, marriages 1894, 95, 1905, village assembly resolutions [for Rosenberg]
The funds for [translating] the Rosenberg records will come out of our translation of archival documents [fund] – any donations from Rosenbergers will go back into that account to continue to get more records translated. Once translated, the finished document will be on sale at our bookstore.
One of the things we have found is that we get “all” the records from one village but [later] find that there are more in another file folder [from Russia], but for now this is what we have. Also, I believe that the churches covered several villages and there are possibly other villages [included] within the Rosenberg files”.
This year I have dealt with enquiries relating to the Following families: Horst and Pauli (Enquiry from Germany); Schwab; Ziegler (a proof of parentage which used the 1857 census of Rosenberg); Herdt and Stricker; Erdman; Rupp; Meier and Weitzel; and Rahmig. I received one new gedcom for a branch of the Herdt family.
Regards,
by Richard E. McGregor
richard.mcgregor@cumbria.ac.uk
Rosenfeld Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Roger Burbank, VC for Rosenfeld and Langenfeld.
burby9@yahoo.com
Rosental Samara Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
January 14, 2019
GENERAL
I attended the convention in Hays.
I assembled and sent village file collections for Rosental and Katharinental to Headquarters. Sarah said that the files were entered into the village files at Headquarters, but they are still not posted on the AHSGR web site.
Several inquiries were received resulting from my contact information listed on the Village Coordinator list on AHSGR web site.
I continued work on indexing the LDS films for 1850 and 1857 to facilitate finding original census records.
ROSENTAL
The 1874 Rosental Family Lists were obtained with the help of Mila Koretnikov (using personal funds). I translated the lists and am presently checking my work for errors. A template was made for the Family Lists to record the translated entries.
I have Rosental census records of 1850, 1857, 1861 addendum, the 1874 Family Lists and most of the translated mother colony census records for 1857.
I verified / found the mother colonies of the 1874 Rosental households.
Mother colonies were
Beauregard (Boregardt), Boisroux (Boaro), Ernestinendorf, Kaneau (Kano), Katharinenstadt, Kind, Orlovskaya, Paulskaya, Philippsfeld, Reinwald, Schäfer, Schulz, Urbach and Yagodnaya Polyana.
1874 Surnames were
Altenhof Amheiser Asmus Bachert Bardt Bauer Becker Belsch Blank Bornemann Böttcher Boxhorn Bullig Damer Deis Eberhard Ebert Ehrenberg Eichler Emich Engel Engelmann Erfurth Erlenbach Ermisch Ertel Fellinger Felsing Fischer Franz Gann Gensch Genze Christ Ginter Golzwart Gottfried Gross Grune Gutjr/Gutjahr Hardt Hartmann Heldt Helm Herber Hergert Hilgenberg Hoffman Hoppe Ichtritz Janson Jost Karle Karlin Keller Kieller Kind Klemann Klotzbach Klunk Knatz Knaub Koenig König Krach Krämer Kremer Krieger Krupe Lehmann/Leiman Lehr/Lier Lemp Leonhardt Lichtner Lieder Lier Lies Mai Markgraf Markus Maurer Meinik Merker Nebert Niesing Otto Paster/Baster Paul Reichert Reimer Reisch Reisner Retz Riemer Sabelfeld Sauer Schiefferstein Schmidt Schnegelberger Schneider Schönknecht Schugart Schwartz Schweigert Sonegrin Specht Stallbaum Steinbrecher Sterkloff Strack Susdorf Tit/Dit Trautwein Vogel Wamschans Weber Weimann Welsch Winshu Wittenbeck Wormsbecher Ziborius Zorn
I continued support from last year for the Wiedenbeck and Markgraf families of Rosental and found the missing link to earlier ancestors using the 1874 Rosental family list.
An inquiry was received for the Kelch family (Catholic) of Rosental. The only family with this name was found in Rosental, Crimea (a Catholic village). I sent some information to the inquirer.
Several new members email addresses were received and I sent welcome emails. It appears from ancestral names that they were not descendent from colonists of Rosental am Jeruslan nor Katharinental, Samara.
KATHERINENTAL
Birth records for the Peter Keil family of Katharinental were obtained with the help of Mila Koretnikov. Information for Katharinental is scarce and the entire birth records of 1905 – 1917 (in Saratov) would be worth obtaining.
These are two small villages. Information is scant. Care is required to not confuse them with other colonies with the same names.
Jeremy Landt, Village Coordinator, Katharinental, Samara and Rosental, Samara
2 Rabbit Rd.
Santa Fe, NM 87508
505-690-3000
jeremysfnm@gmail.com
Schäfer Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Names: Schäfer/Schaefer/Lipovka
We have had many inquiries for the Village of Schäfer. Typically having 1 or 2 a year, this year we had 6. I was able to help with some, but due to limited sources for this village, there was not much I could help with. The surnames of interest were: Gerber/Kerber, Welsch, Bauer, Ertel, and Kramer. I was able to help clarify the name Gerber/Kerber in different censuses as being the same person and hopefully able to help direct them to where they needed to go. I was also able to connect with the person who inquired about the Bauer line. She and my husband are third cousins. We were able to share information and get our line further back with detailed dates due to the sources Dr. Igor Pleve was able to get for me. Not much came out of the other lines, though with the information I have from my husband’s cousin I can give more information to them.
There are many challenges to helping other’s find their family when there are limited sources available. I have been in contact with Dr. Pleve who was able to get me information on my direct Bauer line from the 1844 Personalized book and other church records on my line as well.
I am excited to be able to help others with their family history as much as possible as well as share the joys and frustration of researching.
Brenna Stokes
Schäfer Village Coordinator
Schaffhausen Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Schaffhausen (aka Michaelis, Volkovo, Wolkowo) was one of the original “Mother Colonies” established between 1764 and 1772 along the Volga River near Saratov. Schaffhausen was founded on 13 August 1767 on the Wiesenseite (meadow side) of the Volga River. It was also one of the “Beauregard colonies” – Baron Caneau de Beauregard was a Russian government appointed immigration agent tasked to find settlers for the Volga colonies- which were also known as “Catherine’s fief”.
Schaffhausen was among a group of 13 colonies established in the vicinity of the Little Karaman river situated inland from the eastern bank of the Volga. Due to poor soil conditions Schaffhausen and another 7 colonies were relocated to the northern stretch of the eastern Volga riverbank in 1770. Schaffhausen was the northernmost of these original Volga river colonies at position 51º56′ N 47º18′ E.
The colonists were assigned to settlements according to their religion and Schaffhausen is listed as a Lutheran colony. A stone church, known as the “Holy Trinity”, was built in 1832 and was reportedly the first stone church in the region. It and adjacent school buildings have been destroyed.
As an official Schaffhausen First Settlers List (FSL) has not been identified. However, I have created a tentative Schaffhausen FSL on EXCEL derived from various sources including:
· FSLs of other villages where settlers wintered prior to establishing the Schaffhausen colony;
· limited extract of the 1835 village Revision List;
· 1857 Census;
· 1892 Census extract (pdf file)
2018 Comments
A very quiet year with no new contacts and only follow-ups with previous correspondents. A perusal of German GR websites indicates there is a sizeable community of Schaffhausen descendants residing in Germany. This corroborates my personal research which has identified descendants of Schaffhausen colonists leaving Russia, mainly Siberia and Kazakhstan, for Germany after the demise of the Soviet Union.
Regards
Jim Parsonage
VC Schaffhausen
Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
Shcherbakovka Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
It’s been another fairly slow year with only a few inquiries. I have worked with and been of some assistance with family lines of Riffel, Steinert, Reisig, Winter, Meier and Laubhan.
I purchased the records of the Lutheran Church of Shcherbakovka a few years ago and extracted the information into 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 Lower Volga 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. I am anxiously awaiting any records that are available.
Janet Laubhan Flickinger
V.C. for Shcherbakovka
email – janflick@cox.net
Stahl Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Very slow year with a few helps.
A tough year for me as I have lost some loved ones but will continue to help those inquiries.
Paul Koehler, VC for Bangert and Stahl am Tarlyk
Straub Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I had the following inquiries about these Straub families: Glock, Karle, Metzler, Rudolph, Scharton (3), Schwabenland (2), Steitz
I received Straub death records for years 1865, 1866, 1867 from the Russian archive. This is information on deaths of 158 people. I have Straub deaths for 1826 to 1833. Want to get more Straub records from the archive.
I have found information on Straub women who married in Warenburg in the 24 Warenburg Family Lists I have for 1885. Also finding Straub women in other nearby church records.
I was not able to attend the 2018 AHSGR convention. I did attend the 2018 FEEFHS convention held in SLC. I attended many presentation that will help in finding German villages of origin.
Sharon White, Straub VC
Tarlyakovka Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
The Dinkel/Tarlyakovka report: Another slow year. I had 2 requests for information; which i supplied. I had 3 names that Hqs. sent out requesting info about the town. I replied 3 times to the addresses and have still not received a reply. Oh, well. I will be at the convention this year. I will have all my paper material regarding the town. I am handing it into Hqs or any volunter!!!!!! After 35 years, I am sure someone can do a better job than me. Auf weidersehn. Leroy Nikolaisen
Tarlyk Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Very slow year with a few helps.
A tough year for me as I have lost some loved ones but will continue to help those inquiries.
Paul Koehler, VC for Bangert and Stahl am Tarlyk
Volhynia, Polish Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
During the 2018 year there were three research requests. One was a referral from another village coordinator. The person was researching the surnames Goodhart, Silvermintz and Officina from Warsaw, Poland and Galicia (Russian Poland). A list of research sources and websites was sent. Another request came from a researcher in Germany for the surnames Nehring, Nering, Rentz and Renz in Baranovka, Baranowski-Schytomyr. I was able to provide family information and sources. Another request was for the surname Warner/Werner. The family moved around in the areas of Germany, Prussia, Poland and Bessarabia. I was able to pinpoint a particular village and suggest other sources for research. Polish villages have many different spellings. Other surnames being researched in 2018 were Stieben, Sinner, Keller, Kaiser, Bauer, Braun, Schultz, Epp, Ditmar, Reiners, Romanov, Schmidt, Maurer, Becker, Ollek. Some surnames appear as both Volhynian and Mennonite. A list of researchers, surnames and villages is updated before each convention and scanned into the village file by AHSGR Lincoln.
I wasn’t able to attend the Kansas Convention but suggested two AHSGR members who could act as facilitator for Area 8. Thank you to Anna Thompson from Oklahoma for her support. Several pages of updated information were sent to the convention for inclusion in the Heritage Hall binder. It would be a great help to have somone to assist me with Volhynian research.
Mabel Kiessling
Village Coordinator for Polish Volhynia
Volhynia Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
During the 2018 year there were three research requests. One was a referral from another village coordinator. The person was researching the surnames Goodhart, Silvermintz and Officina from Warsaw, Poland and Galicia (Russian Poland). A list of research sources and websites was sent. Another request came from a researcher in Germany for the surnames Nehring, Nering, Rentz and Renz in Baranovka, Baranowski-Schytomyr. I was able to provide family information and sources. Another request was for the surname Warner/Werner. The family moved around in the areas of Germany, Prussia, Poland and Bessarabia. I was able to pinpoint a particular village and suggest other sources for research. Polish villages have many different spellings. Other surnames being researched in 2018 were Stieben, Sinner, Keller, Kaiser, Bauer, Braun, Schultz, Epp, Ditmar, Reiners, Romanov, Schmidt, Maurer, Becker, Ollek. Some surnames appear as both Volhynian and Mennonite. A list of researchers, surnames and villages is updated before each convention and scanned into the village file by AHSGR Lincoln.
I wasn’t able to attend the Kansas Convention but suggested two AHSGR members who could act as facilitator for Area 8. Thank you to Anna Thompson from Oklahoma for her support. Several pages of updated information were sent to the convention for inclusion in the Heritage Hall binder. It would be a great help to have somone to assist me with Volhynian research.
Mabel Kiessling
Village Coordinator for Volhynia
Walter Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Village Coordinators:
Michael Fyler, Walter database (waltervillage@yahoo.com)
Mary Jane Bolton, Researcher and Facebook Moderator (walter4vc@gmail.com)
Byron Wagner, Obituaries and Researcher (bybarb@hotmail.com)
Jean Roth, Historian (jeanroth@juno.com)
Inventory:
Censuses: 1798, 1834, 1857, Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Vol. IV
Volgograd-Walter Church Records:
Births- 1839-1900, 1903-1913
Marriages- 1839-1853, 1894-1895
Deaths- 1839-1870
Walter Class Register of Zemstvo School 1884-1889, 1891-1893, 1896-1898, 1900-1901
Extracts from the Family list on the military duty
Tagenrog Jeisk Walter Related 1879-1885 Related Births/Christenings, Marriages and Deaths
Brunnental 1870-1886 Communion Register
2018
Michael Fyler, Mary Jane and Byron Wagner attended the 2018 AHSGR Convention in Hayes Kansas. The folks in Kansas did an excellent job and the convention was well attended. Most of our time was spent with several attendees researching their Walter roots, as well as working with other Frank Canton Village Coordinators.
In 2018 we had over 30 inquiries, researching surnames including, Beck, Benner, Bretthauer, Burkhardt, Döll, Gies, Hamburg, Hill, Ills, Kister, Miller, Schössler, Wagner, Walter, Wiederspahn.
The Walter, Russia Facebook page is active; I appreciate all that Mary Jane and Maggie Hein offer to making page interesting.
The Walter database includes 57,950 individuals and it continues to grow as individuals are added from the Volgograd-Walter church records, obituaries, Brunnental Communion Records, new AHSGR members as well as from the contacts we make on Facebook. We continue to encourage non-members to join AHSGR. On occasion we receive a list of names from AHSGR headquarters of new members who identify Walter as one of their ancestral villages.
Mary Jane has begun sending out emails to those who have listed an email address welcoming the new members and providing basic information and how to contact us etc.
We are constantly searching for additional records or documents to connect the missing years in our church records.
Respectfully submitted by Michael Fyler
Walter Khutor Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Walter Village Coordinators:
Michael Fyler, Walter database (waltervillage@yahoo.com)
Mary Jane Bolton, Researcher and Facebook Moderator (walter4vc@gmail.com)
Byron Wagner, Obituaries and Researcher (bybarb@hotmail.com)
Jean Roth, Historian (jeanroth@juno.com)
Inventory:
Censuses: 1798, 1834, 1857, Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Vol. IV
Volgograd-Walter Church Records:
Births- 1839-1900, 1903-1913
Marriages- 1839-1853, 1894-1895
Deaths- 1839-1870
Walter Class Register of Zemstvo School 1884-1889, 1891-1893, 1896-1898, 1900-1901
Extracts from the Family list on the military duty
Tagenrog Jeisk Walter Related 1879-1885 Related Births/Christenings, Marriages and Deaths
Brunnental 1870-1886 Communion Register
2018
Michael Fyler, Mary Jane and Byron Wagner attended the 2018 AHSGR Convention in Hayes Kansas. The folks in Kansas did an excellent job and the convention was well attended. Most of our time was spent with several attendees researching their Walter roots, as well as working with other Frank Canton Village Coordinators.
In 2018 we had over 30 inquiries, researching surnames including, Beck, Benner, Bretthauer, Burkhardt, Döll, Gies, Hamburg, Hill, Ills, Kister, Miller, Schössler, Wagner, Walter, Wiederspahn.
The Walter, Russia Facebook page is active; I appreciate all that Mary Jane and Maggie Hein offer to making page interesting.
The Walter database includes 57,950 individuals and it continues to grow as individuals are added from the Volgograd-Walter church records, obituaries, Brunnental Communion Records, new AHSGR members as well as from the contacts we make on Facebook. We continue to encourage non-members to join AHSGR. On occasion we receive a list of names from AHSGR headquarters of new members who identify Walter as one of their ancestral villages.
Mary Jane has begun sending out emails to those who have listed an email address welcoming the new members and providing basic information and how to contact us etc.
We are constantly searching for additional records or documents to connect the missing years in our church records.
Respectfully submitted by Michael Fyler
Warenburg Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
I have had the following inquires on these Warenburg families: Adolph, Kinzel (2), Kramer, Leisle, Schmall (2), Scutz, Stumpf, Todt, Vorrath, Weber, Yost.
I purchased Warenburg deaths records for 1851 to 1855 from the Russian archive. There was information on 651 Warenburg deaths. AHSGR has purchased the rest of the Warenburg deaths but so far none have been published.
I purchased 5 more 1885 Warenburg Family Lists for these Warenburg families: Eisner, Funkner, Gerhardt, Kreiter and Valentin. There were 221 maiden names in these records and
47 pages of detailed information on these families. I now have the 1885 Family Lists for these 24 Warenburg families: Boos, Brott, Constanz, Eisner, Funkner, Gammel, Gerhardt, Gobel, Horch, Kaiser, Kinzel, Kreiter, Klamm, Kramer, Lehman, Leisle, Lorenz, Roth, Schiffman,
Simon, Valentin, Vogt, Werner, Yost.
Steve Schreiber sent me 81 pages of Warenburg records he received when he had his Pleve charts done for his Schmidt and Molko ancestors. I was most excited about 3 pages of the handwritten Russian of the 1766 Kuhlberg list.
I was unable to attend the 2018 AHSGR convention. I did attend the 2018 FEEFHS convention in SLC. I attended many presentations that will help in finding German villages of origin.
Sharon White, Warenburg VC
Yagodnaya Polyana, Saratov, Volga Village Coordinators Annual Report for 2018
Once again, the number of emails this past year has been steady. As with most VC’s (I think), there is a little frustration that when we help those looking for information, but they tend not to add new info to our database. Having said that our database does continue to grow as more documents are available online and when a query is received we do some “diving” to see if more info can be added.
The newsletter continues to be sent out 4 times per year. There are currently 163 people receiving copies of the newsletter.
The interest in the YP Facebook page continues to grow. We have well over 200 likes on the page with many living in Germany, Russia, Canada and the US.
Sadly, no new sources have been found for YP however Maggie Hein has done extensive research on the origins of many GR colonists. We are very lucky she has confirmed some YP settlers (Befus, Dietz, Götz, Konschuh, Würtz, Bär, and Leinweber).
Several descendants of YP settlers have published books on their family histories. Sandra Stelter has published a book called “Jagoda Food Scrapbook: recipes, stories, pictures”. Gary Fuchs published: “The Great Grandparents of Yagodnaya Polyana, Russia: The Conrad Fuchs, John Ward Schmick and Related Family Histories”. Dr. Richard Scheuerman and Clifford E Trafzer published “Hardship to Homeland: The Pacific Northwest’s Volga Germans”. While not specific to Yagodnaya Polyana this book has some awesome information of the life and times of all of our GR ancestors.
It was a rather full year and 2019 is starting off just as busy.
Marlene Michel
Village Coordinator for Yagodnaya Polyana