Johannes Kaiser

Family #26a in the 1767 Müller census.

Family #39 in the 1775 Grimm census.

Family #11 in the 1798 Grimm census.

Johannes Kaiser’s exact birth year is fuzzy. I’ll start with what is known about him from the 1775 Grimm census. He was married to the widow Anna Margaretha Kaltenberger, widow of Alexander Meisner. [1] The census shows his wife’s three children with her first husband Alexander Meisner as his step-children. [2] At the time, he was only 22 years old, giving him a birth year of about 1753. His age could be incorrect, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Some sources name his father as Johann Valentin Kaiser, also an original settler of Grimm. This appears to be based on Johann Valentin’s entry in the Kulberg Reports. [3]He and his wife had two children who traveled to Russia with them:

  • Johann, 8 years old, giving him a birth year of 1758 [4]
  • Catharina, 4 years old, giving her a birth year of 1762 [5]

One year later in the 1767 Grimm census, neither Johann or Catharina are named with the family. Instead, Johann Valentin and Anna Barbara have only one child listed, a new daughter, Elisabeth Eva Katharina, just one month old. [6]

In every circumstance of missing children’s names in the 1767 census that I have encountered, it means that the children did not survive the journey to the Volga region of Russia. At 9 and 5 years old, neither of the two missing children were old enough to live on their own or with another family.

The Johannes Kaiser who lived in Grimm in 1775 first lived for a year in Müller. [7] He is listed there in the 1767 Müller census as a single man, age 26, who lived with 51-year-old widow Anna Katharina Müller and her two children, Gottfried, age 23, and Christina, age 21. [8] At the end of his listing in the 1767 Müller census, it says that he moved to Grimm in 1768. [9]

If he was 26 years old in 1767, he would be 8 years older in 1775, or 34. The age of the Johannes in the 1775 Grimm census was 22. This seems to be an odd accidental error. Things to note:

  • If the 1767 census had an error and he was really 16, not 26, then in 1775, he would have been 24. The 1775 Grimm census says he was 22 years old. [10]The difference between 24 and 22 is much smaller and is much easier to believe in terms of an error.
  • In 1798, he gave the correct age for someone born in 1753. [11] Errors in birth years as people age are more common, but the fact that it matches the birth year from the 1775 census is interesting, although I’m not sure it means anything significant.
  • Johannes’ second wife was Catharina Müller. She had the same surname as the widow from Müller with whom he first lived in the Volga region. Born in 1769,[12] she was obviously not the widow herself or the widow’s daughter Christina, but she could have been related in some way and his connection to his second wife started with the Müllers from Müller (no, that’s not a typo).
  • Catharina Müller traveled from Germany to Russia as a widow; her husband did not pass away on the journey to the Volga. [13] She was originally from Stolberg, traveling on document 3830 with three children: Gottfried, 22; Anna Maria, 23; and Christina, 20. Daughter Anna Maria is not mentioned in the Müller family in the 1767 census. She had married Adam Ebel, 48, from family 28 in the 1767 Müller census.[14] He was a Lutheran farmer from Darmstadt with three children, ages 10 to 17, for whom she was a step-mother. They lived next door to Anna Katharina Müller in 1767. Anna Maria Ebel’s identity as a Müller daughter is confirmed in the 1798 Müller census. By this time, her husband Adam Ebel had passed away and she had remarried Johann Heinrich Heimbuch. Anna Maria Ebel Heimbuch’s maiden name was revealed to be Müller. This means Anna Maria married her neighbor in Müller and lived next door to her biological family for many years, probably until her first husband’s death. [15] This information may not seem relevant to Johannes Kaiser’s heritage, but it may give us clues if and when new information comes to light. For this reason I have included it in this discussion.

Conclusions

1. There is no definitive evidence that Johann Valentin Kaiser is the father of the Johannes Kaiser of this profile. There is a 17-year discrepancy between the birth year of Johann Valentin’s son, 1758, and the birth year of this Johannes, 1741.

2. Ludwig Kaiser cannot be the father of the Johannes in this profile because he is not old enough and Johannes’ name is not included as a family member in multiple Volga German resources.

3. There may have been an error with the age of Johannes Kaiser in one or more of the various sources of information about early Volga Germans.

4. The Johannes Kaiser who appears in the 1775 Grimm census first lived in Müller and is identified as living with the widow Catharina Müller and her adult children in the 1767 Müller census.

Research Notes

There are two Johannes Kaisers in the Kulberg Reports,[16] but none are the Johannes Kaiser of this profile. In 1766, he would have only been 13 years old, too young to be married with children. Therefore, he must have been the son of another Kaiser if he’s in those lists at all. Listed below are all the possible matches in the Kulberg Reports.

1. Caspar Kaiser, a Catholic carpenter from Neuberg had an 11-year-old son named Johann. Probably not his father because 1) this family was Catholic, not Lutheran, 2) Johann would have been 13 or 14, not 11, and 3) his name was Johannes, not Johann. See page 295.

2. Jacob Kaiser on page 136 had no children.

3. Johann Kaiser on page 220 was Catholic and had a son Johann Georg, age 7. His son cannot be a match because 1) wrong first name and 2) wrong age.

4. Johann Kaiser on page 242 had no sons, only two daughters. Did they all not survive the journey to the Volga region, giving him the opportunity to move in as a single man with the Müller family in Müller?

5. Johann Kaiser on page 315 could be a match. There is no age for him. He was from Isenberg and single.

6. Johann Kaiser on page 319, also from Isenburg, married but no children traveling with him. He did bring two servants, Ernst and Magdalena, both age 20. Could his wife have died and he ditched the servants all within a year, allowing him to move in as a single man with the Müller family from Müller?

7. Johann Kaiser on page 343, traveled with 4 children, one named Johann, 4, and the other Johannes, age 1. Boys are too young to be a match with the Johannes in this profile. His age is not stated. Could his wife and children have all perished, allow him to move in as a single with with the Müller family from Müller?

8. Johann Dietrich Kaiser on page 359, married with three children, son Johann is 1 year six months old, too young to be a match.

9. Johann Valentin Kaiser on page 329, Lutheran, from Darmstadt, had a son named Johann, 8 years old, making his birth year 1758. This boy is too young to be a match, and Johann Valentin is too young to be the father of a person born in 1741, unless there is an error is the listing of his age or birth year.

9. Ludwig Kaiser, page 169, a Lutheran farmer from Hessen, traveled with his family but had no boys.

10. Peter Kaiser on page 242, Reformed farmer from Isenburg, traveled with a wife but they had no children.

11. Philipp Kaiser on page 58, Catholic farmer from Mainz, traveled with his family, two boys named Peter and Nicolaus, ages 6 and 5, not the right names and not the right ages.

12. Philipp Kaiser on page 98, Reformed farmer from Isenburg, traveled with family, but no sons.

13. Thomas Kaiser on page 319, traveling with a wife but no children.

The only possible matches are bolded in the list above. Intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants wasn’t a dealbreaker, although it was unlikely. Despite that, Caspar Kaiser’s son is the only one remotely similar in age Johannes in lists. Johann Valentin Kaiser ended up in Grimm, but by 1767 time 9-year-old son Johann isn’t mentioned. Additionally, a 9-year-old was still too young to be a match, even if he survived the trip to the Volga.

The best candidate is the Johann Kaiser traveling alone on page 315. The misspelling of his first name (Johann instead of Johannes) could have been a simple error.

This brings us to possible German birth records. I limited them to those spelling the name correctly, with an “es” at the end of the Johann: Johannes. There were only three possible matches for 1753, and none have the parent options listed above. There was one match for 1741, and one match for 1742.

Possible Birth Record #1 [17]

  • Name Johannes Keyser
  • Event Date 1753
  • Gender Male
  • Birth Date 22 Feb 1753
  • Birth Year 1753
  • Christening Date 24 Feb 1753
  • Christening Place Wattenheim, Bayern, Germany
  • Father’s Name Joh. Georg Keyser
  • Mother’s Name Anna Cath.

Possible Birth Record #2 [18]

  • Name Johannes Kieser
  • Event Date 1641 – 1832
  • Event Date 1753
  • Gender Male
  • Birth Date 04 Oct 1753
  • Birth Year 1753
  • Christening Date 04 Oct 1753
  • Christening Place Evangelisch, Muehlhausen, Vaihingen, Neckarkreis, Wuerttemberg
  • Father’s Name Matthaeus Kieser
  • Mother’s Name Christina

Possible Birth Record #3 [19]

  • Name Johannes Keiser
  • Gender Male
  • Christening Date 01 Sep 1753
  • Christening Place Plieningen, Württemberg, Germany
  • Father’s Name Joh. Michael Keiser
  • Mother’s Name Catharina

Possible Birth Record #4 [20]

  • Name Johannes Kaiser
  • Event Date 1741
  • Gender Male
  • Birth Date 04 May 1741
  • Birth Year 1741
  • Birthplace Kappelrodeck, Baden, Germany
  • Christening Date 05 May 1741
  • Christening Place Kappelrodeck, Baden, Germany
  • Father’s Name Adamus Kaiser
  • Mother’s Name Ursula Hug

Possible Birth Record #5 [21]

  • Name Johannes Kaeyser
  • Event Date 1709 – 1795
  • Event Date 1742
  • Gender Male
  • Birth Date 08 Feb 1742
  • Birth Year 1742
  • Christening Date 09 Feb 1742
  • Christening Place Evangelisch, Sexau, Freiburg, Baden
  • Father’s Name Christian Kaeyser
  • Mother’s Name Barbara Cammer

The above possible match is interesting because Christian was a name used from generation to generation in the Kaiser family in Grimm, headed by Johannes. Also noteworthy, Johannes had a daughter named Barbara. Was she named after his mother and his son Christian after his father? The village of Sexau, Freiburg is located in what is now southwestern Germany, near the Rhine River and the border with France, an area with high representation in the Volga German colonies.

I’ve been through the Volga German Transport List and don’t see any matches for the Johannes Kaiser in this profile. That brings us to the Danish records. [22].

  • The three Kayser entries on page 469 are for young men ages 22, 21, and 21. They are the sons of Friederich Keyser/Kayser. None are old enough to have a child of 13. One of them, Ludwig, immigrated to Grimm. This makes looking at him again plausible, for one reason or another.
  • Friederich Keyser/Kayser on page 471 is, at 49, old enough to have a child of 13. The children listed do not include a Johannes. The closest to that name is Johann Michael, age 11. The age is close, but the name is off. With a name like Johann Michael, the first name was not the name he would have used on a daily basis, it would have been Michael. There is a seven-year gap between Leonhard Elias David, 18, and Johann Michael, 11. Could a child have been inadvertently omitted? It’s possible, but we have no way to confirm that. We do know that one of his sons, Johann Ludwig David, ended up in Grimm, but he was too young to be the father of the Johannes Kaiser in this profile.
  • Gottlob Friederich Keyser/Kayser on page 472 was only 26 years old and his wife was 28. No children are listed as traveling with them to Denmark, and there is no indication that he or his wife immigrated to Russia.
  • Johannes Keyser/Kayser is the obvious person to have a son with the same name. He was 58 years old and his wife was 30, most likely making her his second wife. As such, she was barely old enough to have a 13 year old son, although a first wife could definitely have been his mother. Unfortunately they had no children who immigrated with them to Denmark. When the couple left for Russia, they went to the Colony of Riebensdorf in Voronezh, an isolated province in South Russia, not the Volga region of Russia. Even if this man did have a 13-year-old son named Johannes, it doesn’t seem likely that he and his wife would go to to one location and allow his 13-year-old son to go on to the Volga region by himself, a place nowhere near Riebensdorf.

Finally, knowing how families generally stayed together when they immigrated to Russia tells me that any and perhaps all of the Kaisers who ended up in Grimm may have been related. The following Kaisers were in Grimm as of the 1775 census:[23]

  • Johannes Kaiser, age 22, family #39
  • Ludwig Kaiser, age 36, family #45
  • Valentin Kaiser, age 37, family #123

Now that we know the ages of the three men, it’s easy to see that Ludwig and Valentin Kaiser could not have been the father of Johannes Kaiser, unless one of them became a dad as a young teen. Furthermore, if Johannes age is off and he should be older, as in 34, its easy to see that all the men were around the same age and could only have been brothers or cousins, if not strangers.

Johannes and Ludwig lived very close to each other. Is that a coincidence? Impossible to know at this point but still must be a consideration.

Could some or all of them have been brothers? Yes. In the case of Johannes and Ludwig, it would mean there was an error in Danish records. The naming of different German villages of origin could be explained away by marriages or movement to other areas in an effort to find work so they could support their families.

Could Ludwig or Valentin have been Johannes’ father? Yes, but that probably meant Johannes was younger than 22. That also means that as a 17-year-old, he married 30-something widow, which may have pressed the immigrants’ tolerance limits for marriage between an older woman with children and a teen-aged man. If this was the case, it may have triggered him telling Russian officials he was older than he really was. This theory still doesn’t account for why and how he left his family and lived with a widow in a different village and why he got away with saying he was 26 years old when he obviously was much younger. This option feels more improbable than not.

From a different perspective, it could be that Ludwig’s and/or Valentin’s ages are also off, with their real ages being as much as 5 or 10 years older than the records show. The 10-year option is especially valid if there was a typographical error when the original census and immigration records were transcribed. This probably only applies to Valentin’s age. Ludwig was recorded in at least three or four different sources, all listing a similar birth year or age. The likelihood of people in multiple countries making the identical typographical error is not high. Unless, of course, they were intentionally given the wrong information.

Sources

  1. ↑ The 1775 and 1798 Census of the German Colony on the Volga, Lesnoy Karamysh, also known as Grimm; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, NE, USA; Published 1995; family #39 in the 1775 census, Johannes Keiser [Kaiser], age 22.
  2. ↑ Ibid.
  3. ↑ Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766, “Reports by Ivan Kulberg,”Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, Saratov State Technical University; Published in Saratov, Russia, in 2010; page 329.
  4. ↑ Ibid.
  5. ↑ Ibid.
  6. ↑ Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3, Heerstellung: Mecke Druck and Verlag, 37115 Duderstandt; Published 1999; page 79, family #46, Johann Valentin Kaiser, 32, Lutheran craftsman from Darmstadt; wife Barbara, age 32; daughter Elisabeth Eva Katharina, 1 month old.
  7. ↑ Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3, Heerstellung: Mecke Druck and Verlag, 37115 Duderstandt; Published 1999; page 183, family 29 a, Johannes Kaiser, age 26.
  8. ↑ Ibid.
  9. ↑ Ibid.
  10. ↑ The 1775 and 1798 Census of the German Colony on the Volga, Lesnoy Karamysh, also known as Grimm; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, NE, USA; Published 1995; family #39 in the 1775 census, Johannes Keiser [Kaiser], age 22.
  11. ↑ The 1775 and 1798 Census of the German Colony on the Volga, Lesnoy Karamysh, also known as Grimm; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, NE, USA; Published 1995; family #11 in the 1798 census, Johannes Kaiser, age 46.
  12. ↑ The 1775 and 1798 Census of the German Colony on the Volga, Lesnoy Karamysh, also known as Grimm; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, NE, USA; Published 1995; family #11 in the 1798 census, Katharina Müller Kaiser, age 29.
  13. ↑ Pleve, Igor; Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766, “Reports by Ivan Kulberg;”Saratov State Technical University, Saratov, Russia; published in Saratov 2010; page 249, Catharina Müller, Lutheran from Stolberg, document number 3830, widow, children: Gottfried, 22; Anna Maria, 23; and Christina, 20.
  14. ↑ Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3, Heerstellung: Mecke Druck and Verlag, 37115 Duderstandt; Published 1999; page 182, family 28, Adam Ebel, age 48, Lutheran farmer from Darmstadt, wife Anna Maria Ebel, 24.
  15. ↑ Mai, Brent Alan; 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga, Volume 1; American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska; Published 1999 and 2005; page 739, family Ml24, Anna Maria Müller Ebel Heimbuch, age 50, deceased husband Adam Ebel, son Gottfried Ebel, age 25.
  16. ↑ Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766, “Reports by Ivan Kulberg,”Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, Saratov State Technical University; Published in Saratov, Russia, in 2010
  17. ↑ Possible Birth Record #1: “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NJMX-6F2 : 28 November 2014), Johannes Keyser, 24 Feb 1753; citing ; FHL microfilm 193,217.
  18. ↑ Possible Birth Reord #2: “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VH3R-FMB : 28 November 2014), Johannes Kieser, 04 Oct 1753; citing ; FHL microfilm 1,184,985.
  19. ↑ Possible Birth Record #3: “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NNW9-Y7Q : 28 November 2014), Johannes Keiser, 01 Sep 1753; citing ; FHL microfilm 1,055,927.
  20. ↑ “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NGDL-R5J : 28 November 2014), Johannes Kaiser, 05 May 1741; citing Kappelrodeck, Baden, Germany; FHL microfilm 958,356.
  21. ↑ “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V412-6BB : 28 November 2014), Johannes Kaeyser, 09 Feb 1742; citing ; FHL microfilm 1,189,800.
  22. ↑ The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766, Druck and Bindung: Druckerei and Verlap Steinmeier GmbH & Co. KG, 86738, Deiningen, Germany; Published 2012.
  23. ↑ The 1775 and 1798 Census of the German Colony on the Volga, Lesnoy Karamysh, also known as Grimm; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, NE, USA; Published 1995; families #39, #45, and #123 in the 1775 census.
  • Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Band 3, Heerstellung: Mecke Druck and Verlag, 37115 Duderstandt; Published 1999; page 183, family 29 a, Johannes Kaiser, age 26.
  • The 1775 and 1798 Census of the German Colony on the Volga, Lesnoy Karamysh, also known as Grimm; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, NE, USA; Published 1995; family #39 in the 1775 census, Johannes Keiser [Kaiser], age 22; family #11 in the 1798 census, Johannes Kaiser, age 46.
  • Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766, “Reports by Ivan Kulberg,”Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, Saratov State Technical University; Published in Saratov, Russia, in 2010; pages 58, 98, 136, 169, 220, 242, 295, 315, 319, 329, 343 and 359.
  • Eichhorn, Alexander, Dr., and Dr. Jacob and Mary Eichhorn. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766, Druck and Bindung: Druckerei and Verlap Steinmeier GmbH & Co. KG, 86738, Deiningen, Germany; Published 2012.
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