Wiederspahn
The lists of the recruiter Johann Facius record that the Johann Heinrich Wiederspahn family came from Gelnhaar, and the 1767 census of the Volga German colony of Walter also records that Johann Heinrich Wiederspahn came from the German village of Gelnhaar near Hanau.
According to the Gelnhaar parish records, Johann Heinrich Wiederspahn from Usenborn, and Juliana Engel, daughter of Johannes Engel, were married on 5 August 1751. The baptisms of seven children are recorded in the Gelnhaar parish registers: (1) Johann Adam, born 22 May 1752, baptized 23 May 1752; (2) Anna Elisabetha, born 16 February 1754, baptized 19 February 1754; (3) Johann Heinrich, born 17 December 1755, baptized 23 December 1755; (4) Heinrich Ernst, born 4 March 1758, baptized 8 March 1758; (5) Johannes, born 1 March 1760, baptized 5 March 1760; (6) Anna Maria, born 1 August 1762, baptized 4 August 1762; and (7) Johann Leonhard, born 18 March 1765, baptized 20 March 1765. The family immigrated to Russia arriving from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 15 September 1766.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Walter on 25 August 1767, and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 61.
Before 1816, Wiederspahn descendants were living in the neighboring colony of Frank.
- 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): Wt009, Wt010, Wt013, Wt071.
- Parish records of Gelnhaar.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 308.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6075.
Jean Roth
Maggie Hein
Parish register entry recording the marriage of Johann Heinrich Wiederspahn and Juliana Engel in Gelnhaar on 5 August 1751.
Source: Maggie Hein.