Michael Heller, son of Jacob Heller, was married in Neumühl on 27 January 1756 to Catharina Wolsch, daughter of Vincent Wolsch & Barbara Heitz. She had been born in Neumühl on 1 February 1724.
On 28 March 1736 the lands of Hanau-Lichtenberg (including Neumühl & Kork) were inherited by the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. The region around Kork was commonly known as Hanauerland. As part of Germany's administrative reorganization in 1971, Neumühl became part of the municipality of Kehl in what today is the German state of Baden-Württemberg.
Michael and Barbara had 4 children, each born in Neumühl and baptized in Kork: (1) Michael (born 2 October 1756 & baptized 3 October 1756, died 18 December 1758); (2) Barbara (born 3 March 1760 & baptized 5 March 1760); (3) a stillborn son (born/died 14 July 1762); and (4) Michael (born 9 August 1765 & baptized 11 August 1765).
Michael Heller and his family immigrated to Russia with a group of families from the same region that remained together and settled in Dietel . They departed from the port of Lübeck on board a Russian packet-boat under the command of lieutenant Makkensy, arriving at Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766.
They settled in the colony of Dietel on 1 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 11. No members of the Heller family have been identified in the 1798 Census.
- 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 Kork (LDS Film No. 1189656, 1189657, 1189658, & 1189662).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 284.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 170.