The Online Ortsfamilienbuch for Nieder-Ohmen states that Johann Baltzer Rau was born 22 March and baptized 24 March 1732 in Nieder-Ohmen. He married Maria Henckel on 18 July 1755. Maria was born 17 December and baptized 19 December 1728 in Nieder-Ohmen. Johann Baltzer and Maria had 4 children in Nieder-Ohmen: Caspar, born 8 November, baptized 9 November 1755, died 26 July 1756; Anna Margaretha, born 9 June, baptized 10 June 1757; Juliana, born 24 February, baptized 26 February 1760; and Johann Henrich, born and baptized 3 February 1763.
The family arrived in Russia on 17 July 1766. The ship arrival describes Baltzer Rau as a farmer from Darmstadt. His family includes his wife Maria and children Anna Margaretha, Juliana, Johann Heinrich, and Susanna.
They settled in Grimm and are reported there on the First Settlers List (1767 Census) in Household #12. At that point, the household includes their children Anna Margaretha, Juliana, and Johann Heinrich, and newborn Johann Georg Philipp.
The family is reported in Household #94 on the 1775 Census. Maria must have died and Balthasar (Baltzer) remarried because in 1775 his wife's name is reported as Elizabetha. In this household are his son Johann Philip, daughter Juliana, and daughter Anna Margaretha along with her husband David Lutz.
In 1798, Balthasar and his family are reported on the Census in Household #35.
More details about the ancestors of Johann Baltzer Rau and Maria Henckel can be found on the Genealogy.net web site (see link below).
- Parish records of Nieder-Ohmen on Archion.de
- Ortsfamilienbuch for Nieder-Ohmen by Hans Henkel on Genealogy.net
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010) p. 168
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Andreas Idt, Georg Rauschenbach, 2019): p. 31
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): p. 75
- Rye, Richard, translator. 1775 Census of Grimm (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1995)
- 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): Volume 1, p. 457
Online Ortsfamilienbuch for Nieder-Ohmen on Genealogy.net: Baltzer Rau family
