Gerlach (Norka)
Johann Ernst Gerlach and Anna Margaretha Heeg married on 10 February 1752 in Meerholz. The baptisms of six children are recorded in the Meerholz records: (1) Johann George, born 21 March 1753; (2) Georg Philipp, born 5 May 1755; (3) an unnamed daughter born 4 February 1758; (4) Anna Catharina, born 20 April 1759; (5) Anna Elisabeth, born 10 April 1762, died 16 October 1764; and (6) Ernst Heinrich, born 4 June 1765.
Johann Ernst Gerlach, a farmer, his wife Anna Margaretha, and children (Johann Georg, age 13; Georg Philipp, age 11; Anna Katharina, age 8) arrived in Russia from Lübeck on 9 August 1766 at the port in Oranienbaum aboard the pink Novaya Dvinka under the command of Lieutenant Perepechin. They were traveling with Kaspar Brickmann who is identified as a servant of Ernst Gerlach.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 124.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Nr048, Nr081, Nr186.
- Parish records of Meerholz.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 262.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3885.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai
Meerholz Parish register recording the family of Johann Ernst Gerlach.
Source: Maggie Hein.