Johannes Dortmann, son of Johann Georg Dortmann & Anna Margaretha Hartmann, was born on 14 June 1725 and baptized on 15 June 1725 in the Evangelical Church in Birkenau, 25 kilometers north of Heidelberg. On 22 February 1752 he married to Elisabetha Barbara Hauser, a daughter of Johannes Hauser, in the same church.
They had five known children, each baptized in Birkenau: (1) Eva, born on 17 November 1752, baptized on 19 November 1752; (2) Georg Adam, born on 8 August 1754 and baptized on 9 August 1754; (3) Elisabetha Barbara, born on 6 November 1757 and baptized on 8 November 1757; (4) Johann Peter, born on 16 July 1760, baptized on 17 July 1760; and (5) Johann Wilhelm, born and baptized on 26 April 1762.
Johannes Dortmann and his family emigrated to Russia. They departed from Lübeck by the English frigate Love and Unity with skipper Thomas Fairfax at the helm, arriving in Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766.
The Dortmanns reached the Volga German colony of Paulskaya on 3 August 1767 and spent the first winter there. In 1768 Dortmann family moved to the colony of Kind where son Ludwig is recorded on the 1798 Census in Household No. Kd09.
Son Johann Wilhelm returned to Paulskaya in 1783 and is recorded there in the 1798 Census in Household No. Pl27. Son Georg Adam moved to Näb in 1775 were he is recorded on the 1798 Census in Household No. Nb24.
- 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 Birkenau (LDS Films No. 1340361 & 1340362).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 352.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 343.