Appel (Yagodnaya Polyana)
There are three Appel families that settled in the Volga German colony of Yagodnaya Polyana on 16 September 1767. Their relationship to each other, if any, needs further research.
Three of them arrived together from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 13 September 1766 aboard the galliot Die Perle under the command of Skipper Thomson.
(1 & 2) Peter Appel, his wife Anna Barbara, and their son Johann Heinrich (age 20) are recorded together arriving in Oranienbaum.
Peter Aapel [sic], his wife Anna Barbara, and son Johann Heinrich (age 20) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
On the 1767 census of Yagodnaya Polyana, Peter is recorded as a widower in Household No. 13. Son Johann Heinrich and his new wife Katharina are recorded in Household No. 14.
(3) Johann Adam Appel arrived in Oranienbaum along with his wife Anna Katharina and children (Elisabeth, age 19; Simon, age 9½; Johann Heinrich, age 6; Johann Kaspar, age 2-weeks).
Johann Adam Apel [sic], his wife Katharina (died en route), and children (Elisabeth, age 20; Simon, age 10; Johann Heinrich, age 6, died en route) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
The 1767 census of Yagodnaya Polyana records Adam (remarried to a much younger wife) and son Simon in Household No. 15.
The fourth Appel arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 15 September 1766 aboard the snow-brig Die Frau Dietrika under the command of Skipper Joachim Friedrich Luhn.
(4) Anna Maria Appel had married in Lübeck to Andreas Fischer. They are recorded on the 1767 census of Yagodnaya Polyana in Household No. 49.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that these Appel families came from the German region of Darmstadt. The 1767 census of Yagodnaya Polyana records that all of these Appel families came from the German village of Ober Lais in the region of Nidda.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Yp50, Yp89.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 176, 185.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6229, #6230.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #8009-8011, 8075-8079.
- Stumpp, Karl. The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the Years 1763 to 1862 (Lincoln, NE: The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1973): 118.
Brent Mai