Johann Christoph Wasam, a son of Johannes & Anna Katharina Wasam, was born on 4 June 1725 and baptized on 6 June 1725 in the Meisenheim Evangelical Church, about 39 kilometers north of Kaiserslautern, in Rheinland-Palatinate. He married Maria Charlotta Hermann, a daughter of Philipp Hermann and Maria Susanna Korn, in 1748 in Meisenheim. Maria Charlotta had been born on 29 June 1724 and baptized on 3 July 1724 in Otterberg, 30 kilometers south of Meisenheim.
hey had ten children, each baptized in Meisenheim: (1) Maria Katharina, on 10 December 1748; (2) Johann Peter, on 20 February 1750; (3) Christoph, on 24 August 1751; (4) Susanna Maria, on 9 September 1753; (5) Johannes, on 19 November 1754; (6) Johann Nikolaus, on 24 February 1756; (7) Anna Elisabetha, on 3 October 1757; (8) Johann Daniel, on 30 May 1759; (9) Maria Elisabetha, on 3 September 1761; and (10) Johann Andreas, on 29 May 1764.
Johann Christoph, his wife, and five of their children immigrated to Russia as colonists of recruiter Beauregard. They departed from Lübeck and arrived at the port in Oranienbaum on a vessel commanded by Hans Karholm on 15 September 1766.
They arrived in the Volga River area on 3 August 1767. Johann Christoph's descendants are recorded still living in Zürich on the 1798 Census in Households No. Zr05, No. Zr26, and No. Zr29. The surname seems to have stabilized spelling with Wasen or Wassen.
- 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 Meisenheim (LDS Films No. 193979, 193980, & 975061).
- Parish records of Otterberg (LDS Film No. 488742).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Nordost-Institut, 2008): 350.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 429.