Where did the first settlers come to Rohrbach from?

There is a long tradition: new names of the settlements reflected the geography and the origin of their settlers (York - New York, etc.). According to the 1848 Schoolmaster's Report for Rohrbach, written by Schoolmaster Fritschle, two Colonists who had originated in Rohrbach, Germany, gave the Russian village of Rohrbach its name. They were Peter Schmidt and Peter Nuss.

That is why I suggest that the very first settlers of the Black Sea Rohrbach came from the Palatinate Rohrbach in Germany. There are at least 6 places named Rohrbach in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France, but the Beresan colony took its source from the regions of Palatinate, Württemberg and partly Baden.

The geographical position of German Rohrbach in the Palatinate:

Rohrbach is a municipality in Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. This German Rohrbach isn't known, it's a village to be mentioned in 693 for the first time ( Ph. Elsner: Rittergeschlechter des niederen Adels im späten Mittelalter und ihre Burg in Rohrbach. Ein Beitrag zur Ortsgeschichte des südpfälzischen Dorfes Rohrbach in der Verbandsgemeinde Herxheim. Rohrbach, 1993).

Till the end of the 18th century it was belonging to the Electoral Palatinate. It was a historical territory of the Holy Roman Empire (1085-1803), a palatinate administered by a count palatine. Its rulers served as prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire from "time immemorial", were noted as such in a papal letter of 1261, and were confirmed as electors by the Golden Bull of 1356. The Electoral Palatinate was a much larger territory than what later became known as the Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz), on the left bank of the Rhine, and is now the modern region of the Palatinate in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate and parts of the French region of Alsace (bailiwick of Seltz from 1418 to 1766). The Electoral Palatinate also included territory lying on the east bank of the Rhine, containing the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim.

Map of the Oberämter of the Electoral Palatinate in 1789:

Prefectures: 1 Frankenthal, 2 Mannheim, 3 Heidelberg.
Districts: 4 Alzey, 5 Bacharach, 6 Germersheim, 7 Kreuznach, 8 Neustadt, 9 Lautern, 10 Lauterecken, 11 Oppenheim, 12 Simmern, 13 Stromberg, 14 Veldenz, 15 Boxberg, 16 Bretten, 17 Heidelberg, 18 Ladenburg, 19 Lindenfels, 20 Mosbach, 21 Otzberg, 22 Umstadt (with Hessen-Darmstadt).

Rohrbach is to be found on the territory of Germersheim, Nr. 6.

In 1742, the Palatinate was inherited by Charles Theodore, Duke of Sulzbach. Charles Theodore also inherited the Electorate of Bavaria when its ruling line became extinct in 1777. Charles Theodore's heir, Maximilian Joseph, Duke of Zweibrücken (on the French border), brought all the Wittelsbach territories under a single rule in 1799. The Palatinate was dissolved in the Wars of the French Revolution. First, its left bank territories were occupied, and then annexed, by France starting in 1795; then, in 1803, its right bank territories were taken by the Margrave of Baden. It was one of the first reason why people started to emigrate from that area. The Rhenish Palatinate, as a distinct territory, disappeared. In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was abolished, and all the rights and responsibilities of the electors with it (Kohnle A. (2005). "Mittelalterliche Grundlagen; Pfalzgraftenamt, Territorialentwicklung und Kurwürde". Kleine Geschichte der Kurpfalz [A short history of the Electoral Palatinate]. Regionalgeschichte-fundiert und kompakt (in German) Karlsruhe: G. Braun Buchverlag)

The geographical position of German Worms, second village where first settlers came from:

Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River about 60 kilometres (40 mi) south-southwest of Frankfurt-am-Main. Worms played prominently into the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century, the site of Martin Luther's stand before the 1521 Diet of Worms, and also the birthplace of the first Bibles of the Reformation, German and English.
In 1792 the city was occupied by troops of the French First Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Bishopric of Worms was secularized in 1801, with the city being annexed into the First French Empire. In 1815 Worms passed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse in accordance with the Congress of Vienna and subsequently administered within Rhenish Hesse.

So, we may conclude that, according to one of the possible theories, our ancestors came from the area situated not far from the region between Worms and Rohrbach.