Schreiber

Johann Wilhelm Schreiber, son of Conrad Schreiber and Anna Margaretha Roth, was baptized on 24 December 1749 in Ronshausen, 12 kilometers southeast of Rotenburg. He was confirmed there in 1763. The parish register in Ronshausen records that this young man departed the village in 1766 "to go out into the world" ["Soll in die Welt gegangen Sein"].

It is believed that Wilhelm Schreiber temporarily changed his surname to Becker when he became a colonist, likely to hide his true identity because he was not yet 18, the minimum age for marriage at the time. It appears that he presented himself as a son of either Anton or Johann George Becker, both of whom were Russian colonists from Ronshausen. The strategy seems to have been successful. A "Wilhelm Becker from Ronshausen in the district of Rotenburg" married on 7 May 1766 in Büdingen to Anna Eva Moritz, daughter of Johann Heinrich Moritz. She had been born on 29 November 1750 in Reckershausen, Hessen.

Johann Wilhelm and Anna Eva Becker sailed from the North German port of Lübeck and arrived in Oranienbaum, Russia, on 28 July 1766 aboard the Russian galliot Strelna under the command of Lieutenant Sornev. They were traveling with her parents, Johann Heinrich and Anna Maria Mauritius (a French spelling of Moritz). Anna Eva was born in Stärklos on 19 December 1739 and baptized there on 22 December.

The same couple next appears as Wilhelm and Anna Eva Schreiber, arriving in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767, and are listed there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 135. [Igor Pleve confirms that the surname of Schreiner is errantly recorded in his translation of the 1767 Census and should, in fact, be Schreiber.] Listed in the next household (No. 136) is Anna Eva's father, Johann Heinrich Moritz, and his (new?) wife, Maria Sibilla.

Wilhelm Schreiber and his wife, Eva Moritz, are next recorded on the 1775 Census of Norka as household No. 139, and in the 1798 Census of Norka, residing in household No. 146.