For best results: 

1.        First look up the family name or village in which you are interested. 

2.        Be alert for alternative spellings. 

3.        Look up every word in bold you find in any entry  – those are cross-references that usually will hold additional valuable information.  Good hunting!

Today, many people whose German ancestors settled in Russia are seeking their roots back in Germany.  Some have been successful.  Others are frustrated or need help.  This project is being done with the cooperation of the AHSGR Village Coordinators and will assemble in one place, to the extent possible, all known information regarding the German origins of Germans who settled in Russia.

Our index will grow over time.  It indexes four types of names:

The family name of a researcher who has confirmed a German origin location;

The family name of a German family which settled in Russia for which there is at least a hint of the place of its German origin;

Village names of German villages in Russia;

German state and locality names, at about the time settlers left for Russia.

Within each category different spellings will be cross-referenced.

The entry of a researcher name will carefully indicate which localities that researcher has successfully confirmed origins for which families.  A confirmed locality is one in which the record of birth of a German settler in Russia has been found.  Other types of evidence which has been uncovered will be noted as well.

The entry for a family would indicate all that is known about its German origin and on which Russian village First Settlers’ List it appears.  First Settlers’ information will be taken from published sources.

The entry for a Russian village will indicate which families are said by its First Settlers’ List to have come from what German origins.

An entry for a German locality will indicate all Ger-Rus families (showing their Russian village) said or confirmed to have come from that locality.

Check out the name(s) in which you are interested by clicking on the appropriate alphabetical section below:  Each section runs from the letter or letters indicated up to the words which begin with the letter or letters of the next section:

If you have origin confirmation information and would like to share it with us, please do so through the Village Coordinator of the Russian village involved. If there is no Village Coordinator listed on the AHSGR site, please send your information to Dick Kraus at dickkraus1@yahoo.com.  Please do share!  What follow will be a few stellar Origins Success Stories:

Harold Wiest corresponded with Dr. Joseph Height who found Russian documents indicating that his ancestor Franz Wiest came from Erlenbach (also see Stumpp, p.486).  Harold used LDS microfische of church records for places in the Erlenbach area ... many hours of reading old German script to no avail.  He started telephoning Wiests listed in Southern California telephone books.  One of these told him about a relative, Brian Barr Wiest who had written a book about the family.  He purchased it but could find no mention of his branch in the book.  Finally in the microfische he found his ancestor's birth, 30 December 1772 in Erlenbach.  But could find nothing earlier regarding the family in those records.  Brickwall!  Then he began e-mailing with five other Wiests who were looking for ancestors.  He found he was related to four of the five!  Between them they soon found the parents and grandparents of the man born in 1772 in Erlenbach.  With those names he was able to find the grandfather and the grandfather's ancestry in the Wiest book he had purchased so much earlier!  The grandfather of the grandfather had migrated from Switzerland (Kuettingen in the center of the Aargau, 23 miles SE of Basel) to the Palatinate in 1657, settling in Steinweiler (1 mile W of Erlenbach).  The five then hired a professional genealogist in Switzerland who so far has traced the family line back to 1598!  Harold wrote a book on them: Rohrbach Wiests: From Kuettigen to the Rheinpfalz to South Russia.

21 feb 08