are there records such as birth records, marriages and death records for germans from Russia available online

Question

I'm asking because i would like to trace my great grandma Amalia's ancestry further. so far I only know her grandparents names and one set of great grandparents of hers. I would like the break past the brick walls on this side of the family tree

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Ehoff-Family-Tree-1

Answer 1

I have had some luck using https://www.familysearch.org/search I have number of German ancestors and was able to find Christening and marriage records there. I have never searched for Russian but its worth a try. It's free :)

Hope that helps!

Casey

Answer 2

Finding records for my Volga Germans online has been pretty tricky. I did manage to find them on a passenger list through the Ellis Island site for free. I found lots of sources for them here in the states because I knew where they located, but I hit that ocean-size brick wall, too. I've been taking a bit of a break from researching mine because I'm waiting to get a little more family knowledge. I know what town they came from, but records over there have been lost, or displaced, or outright destroyed (Germans became enemies of the Russians during WWII). My understanding is that the best bet for records is through the various churches, and most likely not online. There are village coordinators available through the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, or AHSGR, who have contacts on the other side, and do lineage charts. If you're lucky someone else has already paid for a line to be researched, and you can buy the chart or a book or something. If it hasn't been researched, it will take them time to do it. There are records in books you can buy. My understanding is it all costs money at this point to fund further research and get access to more records. I do know there are some absolutely lovely biographies that were created by Julie Mangano for her Volga German profiles (I really hope she doesn't mind me mentioning them, but i strive to one day have profiles this nice) here is one www.wikitree.com:wiki:Kaiser-1024

Comments

I've recently begun tracing my husband's family who were Germans from Russia. I found his grandmother's obituary on AHSGR. I was pleasantly amazed at the amount of information which was in the obituary. 

---

Join the Germans from Russia Heritage Society located in Bismark ND.  I bought all the census records of the Germans from Russia.  You need to find out what villages they lived in.  My ancestors came from the villages of Elsass, Mannheim, Kandel. What surname are you looking for.

---

I am researching my ancestors, presently the surname Wentz, from the village of Elsass. I know other German relatives also came to the US from the Black Sea region. I don't live close to Bismark, ND. Are there digitized records such as census, marriage, birth and death available for the Kutschurgan and Odessa colonies and villages online with a membership? What years are covered?

---

You don't happen to have Wentz relatives in McClusky, ND, do you?  They are my cousin-in-laws.

GRHS and AHSGR can both help you (with a paid membership), and they do have information online.  There are a couple free resources as well, but they're not extensive (I don't have any links on hand right now, sorry).

---

To be honest, I am not certain. There are a lot of Wentz's in my family! We may have a common ancestor. Do you have a Peter Wentz and Kathrina (Thomas) Wentz in your family tree (1830s - 1930s timeframe)? They originally settled in Pierce County, but eventually their family and subsequent generations spread into other areas such as Benson and Wells counties, as well as into Canada, Washington, California Wisconsin and Michigan.

Answer 3

Try doing a search for Amalia’s immigration record. If she came over with her parents, you can search for her father’s name. Sometimes the name Amalia was misspelled or they may have listed her as Mollie, so her name might not be as easy to find. There is a space for where they were from, and most (but not all) will list the village and country.

You can also try looking up Amalia and Peter in U. S. Census records. You can often confirm parent names and places of origin.

Finally, the most recent Volga German censuses are for 1854. There is not much information available after that unless it comes directly from families. And there is no public online database where you can search for your Volga German ancestors. Once you confirm the Village they are from, contact the AHSGR Village Coordinator and ask if they have information about your family members. They are the only ones who keep pedigree charts in a searchable format. They can pass along any information they have. Good luck!

Comments

i'll see what new info. i can find in census records. i only know peter ehoff and amalia filbert's parents names and such from personal recollections of older relatives(plus i remeber my dad talking about an old photo he recalls seeing when visiting relatives with martin filbert's mom in it shortly before she died.). on another note:was there other european people who settled near volga river besides germans? because, the last name morland doesn't sound german

Answer 4

Have you tried the Odessa Digital Library?

Answer 5

Absolute majority of Volga Germans were victims of Stalin's purges and repressions. Over the last decade many names of such victims were added to websites that try to list all such persecuted victims.

One of the largest such memorial lists is site [http://lists.memo.ru]. Unfortunately, it's only in Russian. It might be of interest to you that the site lists 36 individuals with surname Brecht: [http://lists.memo.ru/d5/f277.htm#n35]

I also checked surname Echoff and found none in the list.

Filbert surname has 61 results - [http://lists.memo.ru/d34/f115.htm#n1]

Comments

it wasn't my brecht ancestors who were volga germans.- it was the ehoffs and filberts

Answer 6

Do you know for sure that they are Volga Germans? Other Germans went south near Odessa. There’s a very good free website called Black Sea German Research, blackseagr.org. It has a searchable database and maps. Click research at the top. The research page provides a link to Center for Volga German Studies.

Comments

so not all germans who went to Russia are called Volga germans?

i just know my great grandma's father and maternal grandfather came from some region in Russia called Samara. her mom cames from some place called Konstantinovskj(not sure where in russia that's at)

---

Only the ones who settled near the Volga River are Volga Germans. My family was from villages/colonies in Kutschurgan area near Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine). Volga was the first area settled.

---

is samara near the volga river?

---

I don’t know anything about Volga, so I googled it. The Samara River runs into the Volga River at the city of Samara. From the Volga map at blackseagr.org it looks like there’s over 100 different colonies along the Volga River.

I just saw another map that shows there are 20 Samara colonies northeast of the original Volga colonies and just north of the city of Samara.

---

So i guess my ehoff and filbert ancestors are indeed volga germans?

---

Katy, I found one mention of Filbert from Samara in http://lists.memo.ru/index21.htm —

Filbert Aleksnder Aleksndrovich (Aleksandrovich means that his fathers name was also Aleksander). Was born in 1877 in Samara province. German. Grain-grower. Lived in Mineralovodsky region.

Answer 7

Do you know if her family were Mennonites? Mennonites founded a daughter colony from the Volga German colonies called Alt-Samara with the main town called Alexandertal in the Samarskaja gubernija, about 60 miles east of the Volga and 80 miles north of the city of Samara. The colony existed from 1859 through 1941.

Comments

i think they may have been lutheran. I also wonder if the colony they came from had english people as well

---

BTW, here is Konstantinovsky in the Saratow District: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Konstantinovskiy,+Saratov+Oblast,+Russia,+412281/@51.2947863,43.19882,8.2z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x413e63c485f7ab4b:0xc50713c47a4d9e1f!8m2!3d51.9392266!4d42.750561