My husband’s Grandfather, Bob Scholz, had told me a long time ago that there were lots of Appels in the family. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, not until I started genealogy. Grandpa who was born in 1906, in the state of Washington, was the youngest of ten children. All the other siblings were born in Tennessee. The oldest one was his sister Fannie who was born 20 February 1889 in Oliver Springs. Fannie married Oswald Appel 7 November 1906 in Colfax, Washington.
I was surprised to find out that Oswald was from Russia. His father’s name was Johann or John. His mother’s name was Elizabeth Kraft. These names were German. The German word for apple is Apfel. In some parts of Germany you say “Appel”. So where did the Appels family come from?
Back in the day when German families started to immigrate to the colonies or the Americas, some of them went to Russia instead. They were promised religious freedom and land by Catherine the Great and they settled in the Russian Volga River region. Oscar’s family lived in that region for about 100 years. They kept their German language and traditions. That all changed in the 19th century, when land purchases were limited, mandatory military service and they had to speak Russian. There was also a famine in that area. So, Oscar and his extended family left for America. Some of the neighbors went to Canada, South America and other countries.
Someone did the research and found out where the Appels came from in Germany. It’s a village in Hessen, called Nidda. Oscar’s 4th Great Grandfather, Peter Appel was born there in 1717 and died in 1759. Oscar was born in the town of Holstein, Russia now called Verkhnyaya Kulalinka. With the Russian name I was able to look it up on google map. It’s quite a distances from Nidda, about 3400 km or 2100 miles.
There is a great website called The Volga Germans about the settlements.
Oswald was only 5 years old when he immigrated to America in 1888 with his parents. He and Fannie had seven children, Frances, Harold, Donald, Calvin, Dorothy, Eugene and Wilma. They had lots of grandchildren. Frances had 5, Harold 2, Donald 9, Calvin 5, Dorothy 5, Eugene 4 and Wilma had 4. That’s a grand total of 34! Oswald also had six siblings, Leopold, Rosa, Eigen (Eugene), Marie, Rosalie and John. Leopold had 9 children, Rosa 6, Eugene 2, Marie 6 and John had 4.
So, there are lots of Appels to go around with deep German roots!
Do you have Volga German ancestors? Please leave a comment below!
Genealogy Is An Adventure 