Johannes Kutscher, third son of farmer Johann Heinrich Kutscher & Anna Bach and grandson of Christian Kutscher, was born 2 July 1737 in Stangenrod, north of Grünberg, the third son of Johann Heinrich Kutscher and Anna Bach.
Johann Georg Kutscher, second son of farmer Johannes Kutscher & Anna Catharina Bach and grandson of Christian Kutscher, was born 20 October 1740 in Stangenrod. Anna Barbara Kutscher, Johann Georg's sister, was the youngest child of Johannes and Anna Catharina, and was born 27 December 1753.
Not only were Johannes & Johann Georg cousins on their father's side, but their mothers were also sisters, and the grandmother on that side was also a Kutscher. The Kutscher family traces its connections to the late 1500s in Stangenrod.
Johann Georg and Anna Barbara and their cousin Johannes immigrated to Russia, arriving from Lübeck in Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766 aboard the English frigate Love & Unity with skipper Thomas Fairfax at the helm. On the ship's manifest, Johannes has a wife Christina; Johann Georg is married to Anna, with a son named Johann, one year old. Anna, age 12, is reported to be a child of theirs, but is actually his sister.
Johannes and Christina arrived in the colony of Ernestinendorf on 3 August 1767, with a 9-month-old son named Johann. Johann Georg's son died en route to the Volga colonies, and the remainder of their family arrived in Ernestinendorf on the same day.
Johann Georg had passed away by the time that the 1798 census of Ernestinendorf was taken. Cousin Johannes Kutscher was living in Household No. Er12 with his wife Anna Margaretha Walker and seven children. Anna Barbara appears to have passed away, too.
Hofmann, Jan Christof. Familienbuch Stangenrod: Gemeinde Gruenberg, Kreis Giessen.
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).
Mai, Brent Alan, trans. & ed. 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): entries 1014-1015, 1062-1065.
Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 404-405.
Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 342-343.