Genealogy Resources
Listed below are the primary resource contacts for Norka:
Judy Curtis - Norka Database Coordinator
9026 S. Dateland Dr. Tempe, AZ, 85284
tnjcurtis@aol.com
Louis Schleuger - Norka Census Records Coordinator
P. O. Box 773 Lobeco, SC 29931
chibi12@charter.net
Steve Schreiber - Norka Webmaster and Norka Film Coordinator
6806 S.E. 35th Avenue Portland, OR 97202
steven.schreiber@gmail.com
Jerry Krieger - Norka Newsletter Editor
652 8th Street N.E. Mason City, IA 50401
norkanews@gmail.com
Bill Pickelhaupt has a list of Volga Germans baptized or confirmed in Tomsk in the 1890s. At least one person, Amalia Anna Maria Schultz was born in Norka.
The links at right are useful sources for those researching their families from Norka.
The Research Requests page lists inquiries from individuals who are searching for specific information on Norka families.
Guidelines for Researching Norka Families
Starting in the United States and Canada
The Golden Rule of genealogy is to start with what you know, and work your way back. Records of your family that were created in North American may give clues to where your family lived in Russia and when they arrived in Canada or the United States. Residents from Norka are sometimes listed as living in Norga, Norca, Norge. Often times, only the name Saratov is given. Saratov is the province in which the colony of Norka was located. Saratov can also be spelled Saratoff or Saratof (German spellings).
Use genealogy software if possible to organize your research work and always document your sources.
You may want to begin your research by checking to see if your family surname is shown in the Norka Surnames list compiled by Judy Curtis and Louis Schleuger. Be careful as surname spellings can vary greatly. There isn't necessarily one "correct" spelling of your surname. After immigrating to America, many Volga Germans changed ("Americanized") their surname to make it easier for others to pronounce or merely to feel more a part of their new home. (e.g. Schmidt to Smith, Becker to Baker, Döring to Derring). Always search for all the possible surname spellings.
Many vital records (birth, death and marriage) and census lists for ancestors who lived in the United States and Canada are available on ancestry.com.
Emigration to North America began in 1875. Immigration records are also available at ancestry.com (subscription required) and FamilySearch.org. (free site provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).
Many individuals and families from Norka families immigrated through immigration facilities at Castle Garden or Ellis Island in New York City.
Castle Garden records are available online for the period from 1820 to 1913. A simple search option is to enter both "Norka" (37 people shown) and "Norga" (175 people shown) as the Place of Last Residence. You can also search by first name and last name, but be aware that spelling errors are common.
Below is a useful extraction from the Ellis Island records:
Ellis Island Extractions for the colony of Norka
Dr. Ruth Schultz makes the following comment about the Ellis Island extractions. "Over and over "u" has been extracted as "n". For example is you look for Bauer, you may not find it because is has been extracted as "Baner" and Sauer as "Saner." Moreau has been extracted as "Morean." Also a "T" has been extracted as "S." For example my father's first name was Tage. He is listed as "Sage" in the Ellis Island extractions. Knowing this could save some a lot of frustration."
Dr. Schultz also notes that she has found more people from Norka coming to the USA through Baltimore than any other port, especially if they had relatives working on the railroad in Nebraska. She has been told that the train fare from Baltimore was less expensive than from New York and/or their relatives were able to get discounted tickets from Baltimore but not from New York.
It's known that Norka families entered the United States at the Port of Galveston, Texas. Search the Galveston Immigration Records database for your family surnames.
Others from Norka came through ports of entry such as Philadelphia.
Large groups from Norka settled in Nebraska, Colorado, California, Oregon and Alberta, CA.
Several lists of Norka settlers in the United States are linked below:
List of Norka immigrants in Lincoln, NE census of 1912-1914
German Russian obituaries from the Loveland, Colorado Public Library. There are many people listed who were born in Norka (Norca, Norga).
Obituaries for people born in Norka. This list was compiled by Debbie Persinger. Please contact Debbie if you have questions on any person in this list.
Researching Russian Records
Once you have established that it is likely that your family lived in Norka, there several sources for finding them in the Russian records.
You may be in luck and find that a descendants chart (see sample image below) for your Norka family has been completed by Dr. Igor Pleve of Saratov, Russia. The charts trace all of the descendants of a specific family in Norka from the original settlers in 1767 to the late 1800's or early 1900's. Birth, death, and marriage dates are shown for most individuals. In many cases, the charts also note the area of origins in Germany or Western Europe for many families. The current lists of descedants charts for Norka is shown at the link below:
Norka Surname Charts by Dr. Igor Pleve
Sample portion of the Schreiber chart prepared by Dr. Igor Pleve
If a chart for your family has not been completed and you want to order one, please contact Dick Kraus who serves as Dr. Pleve's contact in North America.
If a descedants chart has not been completed, there are other sources available to Norka researchers. Census lists are often an excellent source of information.
A current listing (along with the sources) for all available Norka census revisions are shown at the Center for Volga German Studies link below:
Your family may have relocated from the mother colony of Norka to the daughter colony of Neu Norka (founded in 1852). A current listing of all census revisions for the colony of Neu Norka is available courtesy of the Center for Volga German Studies:
It is also known that people from the colonies of Brunnental and Kautz that were born in Norka. See the links below:
People from Kautz who were born in Norka
Other records for Norka are maintained at the Russian Archives in cities of Saratov, Engels and Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad). Current lists are shown at the links below:
A list of Norka records at the Russian Archive in Engels, Russia (one of the primary archives for Norka and Volga German records)
Another source provides the following list of Norka records that are held at the Archive in Engels, Russia:
Fond # 88 - Regional office Norka 1851-1913
Fond # 304 - Rural Managementt Norka, 1908
Fond # 226 - Evangelical-Lutheran Church Metric Books (family lists), 1833-1915
Please note that Fond is an archival term used to describe an aggregation of documents that originate from the same source.
Norka records at the Russian Archives in Volgograd, Russia
A complete list of records for Norka from the Russian Archives in Saratov is not available.
The Saratov Archive will respond on an individual village basis, through Mila
Koretnikova.
List of colonists who died in 1909 (includes several Norka people)
Check the list of Volga Germans issued passports to travel to America in 1899 (in Russian) provided by Igor Plehve. The right hand column shows the colony of the person that the passport was issued to. Norka = Норка.
Also check the Volga Germans issued passports to travel to America in 1886, 1890-1892, 1900, 1906-1909, 1912 (in Russian) provided by Igor Plehve. The third column from the left shows the colony of the person that the passport was issued to. Norka = Норка.
As of this writing (2011), the LDS church has obtained very few Lutheran, Reformed or Roman Catholic church records for the Volga German settlement area.
Researching German Origin Records
The information below was provided by Jerry Goertzen and Dr. Ruth Schultz.
According to the 3rd Revision of the Russian Census List in 1767 (often called the "Original Settlers List"), most of the people who settled in Norka originated from towns and villages in the modern day state of Hessen, Germany. A very large percentage are listed as being from Isenburg, a former county that is located northeast of Frankfurt. According to Dr. Ruth Schultz, a great many of the original Norka colonists left "Germany," they were from either Isenburg-Büdingen or Isenburg-Wächtersbach. Dr. Schultz has found the Weitzel, Feuerstein, Sterkel, and Weigand families were from the village of Bönstadt which was in Isenburg-Wächtersbach, and the Gruen and Trueber families from the village of Wolf which was in Isenburg-Büdingen. The Albrecht family was from the village of Pferdsbach also in Isenburg-Büdingen. Dick Krause has more in the German Origins Project (see below).
At the time our ancestors left 'Germany' for Russia, Germany did not exist as a soverign nation. It was the German speaking Holy Roman Empire that consisted of many different Kingdoms, Duchys, Provinces and City-States. The Holy Roman Empire ruled until 1806 and the German Empire wasn't established until 1871. Until the German Empire, there were no civil records. The only records were the church parish records. To find information on your ancestors, you need a village name. Then you have to find the parish for that village and see if it has been microfilmed by the LDS Family History Library. The best source for the parish data comes from Kevan Hansen's series "Map Guide to German Parish Registers". Isenburg is in the book titled "Grandduchy of Hessen, Vol I. The books are available from the publisher at GermanMapGuide.com. The publisher is Family Roots Publishing and they have many books on German History.
I have heard of exit lists and other records that were from that time but no one seems to have found them. The church records from Büdingen have been filmed and are available but they are in German. The best source is Professor Brent Mai's "German Migration to the Russian Volga". The colonists gathered at a number of locations waiting for transport. In each town, there were births, marriages and deaths that were recorded in the various churches.
Brent Mai has also translated many of those church records in this book. In your case, there are records for the Büdingen and Lübeck churches. Brent Mai also published a book on the "Transport of the Volga Germans from Orienbaum to the Colonies on the Volga".Another aide to determining the specific town or village that your family lived in before emigrating is The AHSGR German Origins Project compiled by Dick Kraus. The listing for the Norka families is shown at the link below:
The AHSGR German Origins Project - Norka List
Other Records
AHSGR sells a map of Norka that contains the names of several families:
AHSGR also has other materials related to Norka:
Norka List of Information Available from AHSGR
Nazi Germany kept records on the ethnic German families they encountered as many people fled Soviet Russia during the war. A list of Norkans is shown at the link below:
Norka Captured German World War II Records (EWZ)
There is documented evidence of political repression during the 1930s by the Soviet government against the German people living in Norka. The partial list of those who suffered execution or were held in labor camps was obtained from the human rights group Memorial.
In the summer of 1941, virtually all of the ethnic Germans in Norka were deported to Siberia and Central Asia by the Communist regime. Many families lost contact with those living in Russia at that time. Many survivors from this time, along with their descendants, have moved to Germany since the late 1980s.
The Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland (German Language) is an organization for the German emigrants from Russia.
There are also a few Norka family website that are good sources of information:
Margheim genealogy website. Several Norka families are listed.