Richard A. Kraus

In the upcoming year, we will make biennial reports on what we know about Alexandertal, its people and their descendants available via email to all interested parties. Tables we have already begun for these reports include one each on:

• the 1858 Alexandertal census,
• German locations from which the families came and migration of the families within Russia,
• immigration to the US, and
• location of descendants in the US.

The first reports are planned for January and July 2001. Anyone wishing to receive them should email me. Names of families known to have been in Alexandertal are: Beisel, Daniel, Graff, Haas, Helzer, Hoffmann, Keller, Koch, Kraus, Krel, Lekei/Loeppke, Maul, Meier/Meyer, Reil, Sattler, Schmidt, Schreiber, Schultz, Sinner, Strackbein, Steher, Vorster, and Weinberg. Romig / Romich may have been there. The earliest familes (1853) moved there from Schilling, the mutter kolonie, but Alexandertal families also had been in Beideck, Grimm, Norka, Stahl-am-Karaman, Doenhof, Kutter, and Messer among others. Also in the upcoming year, we hope to help start a file, to be stored in Lincoln, full of advice and help precise locales of Volga families origins in Germany. The advisability of such a file was demonstrated when I went this month to Germany to visit Kraus ancestral lands.

ALT DANZIG, Kirovograd and NEU DANZIG, Nikolayev

Curt. Renz

Not much has transpired this year with new discoveries. A few documents have come to light via new archival listings from Odessa but no attempt has been made to obtain them.

Currently there are 223 obituaries in the Alt and Neu Danzig file along with about 30 letters from the villagers sent to America that were published in German newspapers. These are currently being translated into English. I continue to look for additions in these areas.

A hand-drawn map of Neu Danzig was sent to me several years ago and a professional cartographer is in the process to converting the drawing into a map of the village.

ANTON

Betty Muradian

The year 2000 has turned out to be very exciting as far as gathering information on Anton. This past year a young man, who now lives in Germany and whose family was from Anton, sent an email to ask about the village of Anton and his family name, NAZARENUS. After several emails back and forth, we decided we would try to make up a map with the Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance photo acquired from the US National Archives, and the knowledge that his uncles had of Kukkus. The map will have the names of the villagers from 1940, the year they were removed from Anton by the Russian Government. I sent them a large working map of Anton that I had drawn from a slide which was projected on paper on the wall. This slide was made from the photo of the 1942 Luftwaffe flyover of Anton. The Nazarenus family returned the map (to me) with most of the house occupants identified, as remembered from 1941. Now, the map has to be refined and printed. If anyone has a question on villager's names from that time I will try to answer it. We hope to have the map printed in the future, after his uncles conclude they have surnames rather than nicknames used by them.

Also on my agenda is adding the Anton story to the internet. Anyone with questions or information on Anton may contact me either by mail, fax or email.

ATMAGEA / Atmadscha, Dobruja, Romania

LaVerne Graf 

We've not been active this past year. When I attend the San Jose 1998 AHSGR convention I participate in Village Night and handed out packets of info. I also wrote a description of Atmagea for my husband Al Graf's and my visit to Atmagea in 1972. I also translated an article about Atmagea from German to English from the Heimatbuch der Dobrudscha. I submitted both to Lincoln for VC archives.

BALZER

Balzer Web Site

Wayne Bonner

The Balzer Newsletter is alive and well. The issues were behind at the beginning of the year, but have now caught up. We are still compiling the 1857 census. To date about 65 percent has been obtained piece meal from Russia. Our web site is also maintained and has a lot of information.

The highlight of the year was Darrell Weber's trip to Balzer, providing us with a most interesting commentary of life along the Volga River, along with fascinating photographs. He visited a German Russian museum in Balzer. This is the first mention we have ever heard of such a facility. Darrell also mentioned that the local authorities have an index file on former German Russian residents.

Publication of the First settlers list was a welcome source of new information.

Darrell account of the trip to Balzer: This summer in July, we (my wife, son and I) had a chance to visit Balzer. We were impressed with the countryside. There were large grain fields, sunflower fields and potato fields. The area was green and it reminded us of the midwest. We did learn that the name Balzer does not apply to the town because it has its own Russian name, Krasnoarmeysk.

When we arrived in the town, we could see that Balzer is no village but rather a town of over 10,000 people. We did find the area where the old village of Balzer was located. The wooden houses are still there. However, one also has to convert the old German names on the map of Balzer to the present Russian street names. This turned out to be no small task but eventually someone was found that could convert several of the street names.

The old German houses, normally, had interesting shutters. There was a small museum that had a display on the Volga Germans. We drove about 10 miles to see the Volga River. It was quite wide and that was probably because of the dams down river. There were more villages and towns on the East side of the river as compared to the West side (Balzer side). On the way to see the Volga, we passed through Anton which is located in a valley with rolling hills around it. Anton was still a small village. We also visited the village of Moor and it was also small and probably hasn't changed much in the last 100 years. Balzer has a number of industrial companies and is in a more vigorous economic area.

In the computer database for Balzer, we are comparing the data from the two recent books (Pleve and Mai). It would be great if we could obtain the lost Balzer census for early 1800.

BERGDORF, Glueckstal, Odessa, Kherson

[See Glueckstal Colonies Research Association]

BORODINO / Bessarabia

Borodino Web Sites:  Borodino Genealogy & Borodino History

Judy A. Remmick-Hubert

The Borodino web site is going strong and keeping me very busy. The collection of Borodino families is huge and with all these families are Included photographs. The regular mail delivers fewer and fewer inquiries since so many people are researching on the internet. I'm too busy to create a newsletter, however, I try to make up for it by placing everything I can on my site. Within the year, however, I do plan on making a booklet which holds all this data for those who visit our various organizations and NDU can see all of the site on paper.

There is more than just names, there are, also, stories, letters and list of emails by those who have written requests, sent me information and sources for families and historical notes on history.

Often times the pages