Volga German Team

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Related Pages:

Volga German Project category page

Volga German Project freespace page

Volga German Team freespace page

Team Objective

The objective of the Volga German Team, a team of the Germany Project, is to use the collaborative powers of WikiTree to collect, organize, and trace the information of those families into one, easily referenced, location. Our dream is to trace families alive today beyond their Mid-Western present, through their colonial days in Russia, and back to the regions in Germany where they originated. We realize that this will take much work and diligence on the part of the Team Members. But we are willing and able to carry it out!

If you'd like to know more about the Volga Germans, see The History of the Volga Germans.

German: Wolgadeutsche or Russlanddeutsche

Russian: Povolzhskie nemtsy

How to Participate

If you would like to be involved in the Volga German Team, please do the following:

1. Join the Germany Project
2. Add volga_german to your list of followed tags. That way you'll see all our discussions in your G2G Feed.
3. Add a comment below letting us know that you'd like to join the Team
4. Add your name to the team members list below, along with a note about what you're working on in this team right now (please also include family names you're researching and which colony villages your family is from, if you know).
5. Reach out to Volga German team leader Russ Gunther.

Templates

• For historically significant Volga German ancestors who settled or were born in the Volga German colony villages of Russia, please contact the Germany Project leaders and they will adopt the profile to be managed by the Germany Project.
• For all other profiles associated with the Volga German project, those ancestors who settled or were born in the Volga German colony villages of Russia but are not "historically significant" or in need of project protection:
  • Insert the {{Volga German}} template somewhere beneath the ==Biography== heading in the profile. This will display the Volga German sticker in the biography section.
    

    ... ... ... was a Volga German.
    The resulting sticker is to the right:

Categories

• Category: Volga German Colonies: add these village categories to your Volga German profiles

Team Goals

1. Apply Germany Project template {{German Roots}} and Germany Project as profile manager to all profiles that need project management and/or project protection -- or --- add the {{Volga German}} sticker to Volga German profiles.
2. Add village categories to profiles
3. Ensure all profiles are well-sourced and have a well-written biography according to WikiTree's Style Guide.

Team Members

This is what our members have been working on:

• Rich Devlin - working on Jorsch from Schaeffer
• Sheila Gammel - working on the Gammel/Gamel Family of the village Bangert, and the Schaan/Schan family of many Volga_German villages who emigrated to Canada.
• Laura Gerwood
• Koreen Goodman - Family projects/DNA on multiple villages
• Russ Gunther (Volga German Team Leader) - working on adding all the 106 colony village names and free-space page for each so that all your VG ancestors can have their colony village interactively linked on their profile! (Dechant & Leiker of Obermonjou, Wasinger of Schönchen, Bach of Graf, Koenig & Liepfried of Wittmann, others of Schaffhausen, & Rohleder ...immigration to Ellis County, Kansas)
• P Kreutzer - working on family lines of Kreutzer, Younger/Junker, Dreher, Wasinger, Werth, Gerber, and many others, hoping to make profiles with sources and good bios. I have Russian census records from 1767 to 1857 in the colonies of Herzog, Graf, Mariental, Rohleder, Obermunjor, and Schoenchen - if someone is in need of help in those colonies I'm willing to do look ups for them.
• Allison Mackler
• Julie Mangano - working on census data for the Colony of Grimm
• Sarah Mason - working on Dietrich family from Balzer to Lancaster County, Nebraska. Also, working on Kelln family from Holstein (untangling a GEDcom upload from 2012).
• Rob Neff - working on Neff family from Dinkel, also my grandmother's side is German-from-Russia from Crimea
• Terry Poole - working on maternal grandfather’s family Giesick of Walter. Maternal grandmother’s family is more difficult from Hoffental. Both families immigrated to Greeley CO area.
• John Reed
• Pip Sheppard - working on Village of Frank, ancestors of my daughter
• Carole Taylor working on Toepfer's in Wisconsin "Conquering the Wind"
• John McGill - working on Sieben One Name Study. I have Sieben ancestors, but they were not Volga German. Created pages for Schuck and Volmer.
• Brad Geist-working on Geist from Ober-Monjou, Kohl from Ober-monjou, Kessler from Mariental, Schoenberger from Rohleder, Schaeffer from Graf, Gerhauser from Graf, Kohlmann from Rohleder, Wolf from Mariental, Bieker from Obermonjou, Muller from Schonchen and many others. I have a lot of access to various census records via my genealogy center, saved records from Volgarecords, and copies of some of the church books of Katharinenstadt if you need lookups. I am currently actively working on a book of Schoenberger descendants.
• Tom Kouts working on Kautz from Leipzig, Akkermann, Bessarabia, Russia and Tarutyne, Odessa, Ukraine.

Resources

Volga German Colony Villages

• We have a fantastic table of the Colony villages with links to their free-space information & resource pages
• Map plats and satelite images: Germans from Russia Settlement Locations

Helpful Links

• German - English - Russian (quick vocabulary translator)
• Google translator - translate words, or cut and paste a sentence, or translate an entire webpage
• WikiTree language volunteers
• Volga German Origins
• Free space page with photos Volga German Project
• Volga German Colonies village coordinator annual reports on research status for each village (American Historical Society of Germans From Russia International (AHSGR))
• Geschichte der Wolgadeutschen - Russian website (in Russian) including searchable pages for the Volga German colony villages
• Volga German Research Volga German Research by Wordpress. Research links.
• Honored and listed the names of these colonists in Denmark who went on to Russia
• Here are lists of surnames for many colonies
• Find immigration records to US through Ellis Island
• Volga Germans on Wikipedia
• Encyclopedia of the Great Plains
• VolgaGerman.net
• Germans from Russia in Kansas
• History of Germans from Russia
• Friends of the Center for Volga German Studies
• GenealogyWise Volga site
• Germany-on-the-Volga (1924-1941)
• AHSGR: one of the best research sites out there - American Historical Society of Germans From Russia International
• FindAGrave.com - most of our cemeteries in the Volga colony villages are no longer marked, but this is a great resource especially for researching descendants and memorializing our family members...and some are able to locate and contact living cousins who leave virtual flowers on memorials!
• Odessa Digital Library
• The Sidney Heitman Germans From Russia Collection
• Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS)
• Society of Germans in Eastern Europe Databases
• Mennonite Ship List
• Germans from Russia Heritage Collection (GRHC North Dakota State University)
• Volga Region Village Facts
• UNF, Volga German Institute
• 1850 and 1857 Revised Census Records
• Volga Parish Records These folks are actively transcribing parish records. Also see their facebook page.
• Volga German yDNA Group at familytreedna

Books

• Litzenberger, Olga: History of German settlement on the Volga: Part 3 Catholics. This work is the third volume reference book, giving a historical characteristic of the Volga German settlements. 45 Catholic colonies. Data registers of births for each of the German colonies and other archival sources, numerous illustrations. link (in Russian)
• Obholz, Albert: Die Kolonie Mariental an der Wolga. This book summarizes the way of life in the colony Mariental from 1766 until 1941 based on memories of survivors and their descendants. It contains photographies as well as name registers and is available in German and Russian. link
• Toepfer, Amy Brungardt. Conquering the Wind. A saga of the Volga Germans who settled in Western Kansas in the mid 1870s. This book was banned for a while because it was considered uncomplimentary to the Volga Germans.
• Koch, Fred C. The Volga Germans (In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present). Kindle link.
• Weidenweb, Sigrid. The Volga Germans. (The Volga Flows Forever Book 2) Kindle Edition. Kindle link.

Facebook Groups

Germans from Russia Groups

• American Historical Society of Germans from Russia International (AHSGR) (followed by more than 7,400 Facebook members)
• RussianGermans Repository (over 3,600 Facebook members)
• Suchdienst der Russlanddeutschen (Germans from Russia tracing service) (over 1,800 Facebook members)
• Volga Germans (over 8,500 Facebook members)
• Germans from Russia History & Genealogy
• Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS)
• Germans from Russia Food and Culture
• Russian Germans International (over 3,000 Facebook members)
• Wolgadeutschen (over 430 members)
• Germanic Genealogy Society
• Wolgadeutsche unbekannte Wörter und mehr
• Volga Parish Records Group (1300 members)

Volga German Descendants Groups:

• American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR) (followed by more than 7,300 Facebook members)
• Unsere Leute of Ellis County Kansas (400 Facebook members)
• Germans from Russia in Arizona (106 Facebook members)

Volga German Colony Village Groups:

• Frank-Kolb Russia Database (1,535 Facebook members follow this page)
• Graf, Volga (66 Facebook members)
• Obermonjou, Volga Germans (257 Facebook members)

Articles about Volga Germans

• Traces of the Volga Germans by Maxim Edwards, includes photo of ‘Russian Germans – victims of repression in the USSR’ memorial monument in Engels, Russia

YouTube Videos about Volga Germans

• German from Russia listens to a record from Kansas #1
• Russia's Volga Germans
• Germans from Russia: Wolgaheimat Legacy
• Ethnic Germans from Russia
• Russia's ethnic Germans - Why they stayed at home
• Polka

Notable Volga Germans

• Romanus "Monty" Basgall (1922-2005) Major league baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and previously the Pittsburgh Pirates
• Petrowitsch "Peter" Bissing (1871-1961) Violinist
• Virgil C. Dechant (1930-2020) 12th Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, vice president of the Vatican Bank, a Gentiluomo di Sua Santità (a Gentleman of His Holiness, the Pope), a Councillor on the State Council for Vatican City, a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX, a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
• Henry John Deutschendorf Jr (professional name John Denver) (1943-1997) American musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, activist, actor, and humanitarian
• Remigius Oswalt "Remi" Gassmann (1908-1982) American avant garde composer, pianist, educator, critic, and pioneer of electronic sound and music
• Carolyn J. Schoenberger (professional name Laurel Goodwin) (1942-2022) American actress and later nurse and film producer, who made her film debut in Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) opposite Elvis and starred in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Cage (1964).
• Lioba C. "Bo Peep" Karlin (1910-1969) American actress and movie star, wife of Gaston J. Glass
• Anna Maria (Roth) "Annie" Rose (1917-2002) wife of billionaire Tom Rose
• Willard Raymond Schmidt (1928-2007) Major league baseball player, pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds and previously St. Louis Cardinals
• Lieutenant General Edward Lewis "Ed" Tixier (1929-1999) Commander of the 5th Air Force, command pilot & West Point Military Academy
• Lawrence Welk (1903-1992) American musician, band leader, and television show host (actually Odessa German heritage)

Volga German Memorials & Monuments

• Volga German Memorial Monument
• The Genocide of Russia's 'Volga Germans' - One Million Murdered, 1915-1945

American Volga Relief Society (1921-1938)

• American Volga Relief Society (1921-1938) material relates to the starvation of the Volga German colonists in Russia, and the efforts of the AVRS to supply food and other aid to the region (the bulk of the materials are dated 1921-1925, the most intensive years of the Russian famine). (AHSGR Anerican Historical Society of Germans from Russia)