Bönstadt is located southeast of Friedberg. At the time that the Feürstein family left this area in 1766, Bönstadt was part of the Solms-Braundfels Principality. Today it is part of the County of Friedberg in Hessen.
Johann Conrad Feurstein (son of the late Christoph Feurstein) and Anna Margaretha Hartmann (daughter of Wilhelm Hartmann) married in Bönstadt in November 1739. The baptisms of four children are recorded in the Bönstadt parish records: Johann Georg, born 29 October 1740; Anna Maria, born in 1742 (date unreadable); Anna Barbara, born 12 Aug 1744; and Johann Wilhelm, born 12 Jan 1747.
Anna Maria Feurstein and Johann Jacob Weitzel married in Bönstadt in December 1764. They had one child according the the Bönstadt records, Anna Barbara, baptized in December 1764.
The Büdingen marriages report that Johann Georg Feurstein married Agnesa Loch (daughter of Johann Sebastian Loch) in Büdingen on 12 June 1766. Published translations state that Agnesa Loch was also from Bönstadt, though the marriage record is not clear on this point, and her baptism has not been found in the Bönstadt records.
All nine of the family members described above arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 29 August 1766 aboard the ship Apollo under the command of skipper Detlov Merberg. According to the Transport Lists, Johann Conrad, Anna Margaretha, and Johann Wilhelm died during the journey to the villages.
Anna Barbara Feuerstein married Andreas Mohr and settled in Stephan. The other family surviving family members members arrived in Norka on 15 August 1767. The Feurstein couple is recorded on the First Settler's List in Household #170, and the Weitzel couple is recorded in Household #167. The Feurstein couple is later recorded on the 1775 census in Household #104, and on the Norka census of 1798 in Household No. Nr109.
One Feuerstein family from Norka relocated to Brunnental in 1859.
- 1775 Census of Norka.
- Parish records of Bönstadt (LDS Film No. 1195346)
- Parish records of Bönstadt (Dekanat Friedberg) on Archion.de
- Parish records of Büdingen (Dekanat Büdingen) on Archion.de
- Mai, Brent Alan. Transport of the Volga Germans from Oranienbaum to the Colonies on the Volga, 1766-1767 (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1998): A-10.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) : Origins and Destinations (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): 94.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Bands 3 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 275.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 328.
