Becker (Johann Simon)

Associated Colonies
Place of origin
Dannstadt-Schauernheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Description

Johann Simon Becker married Susanna Wetzel in 1746 in the Reformed Church of Dannstadt, located 18 kilometers southwest of Mannheim.

They had three known children, each born in Dannstadt: (1) Johannes, baptized 28 November 1751; (2) Georg Adam, born 20 November 1757, and baptized 27 November 1757; and (3) Heinrich, born 15 March 1762.
Johann Simon Becker and his family immigrated to Russia, but Johann Simon died before arriving in Oranienbaum. Susanna and her children arrived in Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766. They had departed from the port of Lübeck by a Russian packet-boat under the command of lieutenant Trusov.

Susanna remarried to Friedrich Tautfest, but did not survive the journey to the Volga colonies. Her orphaned children arrived in the colony of Dietel on 1 July 1767 along with the stepfather Friedrich Tautfest and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 25.

Son Georg Adam Becker is still living in Dietel according to the 1798 Census (Household No. Dt09). His brother Heinrich moved to the colony of Walter in 1788 and is recorded there in 1798 in Household No. Wt039. There was already another Becker family living in Walter, the descendants of Franz Heinrich Becker .

Sources

- 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).
- Parish records of Dannstadt (LDS Film No. 193812).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 289.
- Pleve, Igor. List of Colonists to Russia in 1766 "Reports by Ivan Kulberg" (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 172.

Researchers
Corina Hirt