Johannes Ils, son of Johannes Ils & Dorothea Zacharias, was born in the village of Schlotzau and baptized on 19 March 1725 in nearby Langenschwarz, northeast of Schlitz. He married on 21 August 1755 in Langenschwarz to Magdalena Hartmann, daughter of Johannes & Anna Barbara Hartmann, and widow of Johann Georg Schössler. They had at least four children, each baptized in Langenschwarz: (1) Anna Katharina, born 3 October 1756; (2) Adam, born 25 October 1759, died 19 March 1762; (3) Johann Nicholas, born 22 December 1761; and (4) Johann Adam, born 16 July 1764.
The Ils family, along with the Schössler step-children, immigrated to Russia arriving in the colony of Walter on 25 August 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 10. Johann Caspar, the oldest of the Schössler children, is recorded in Household No. 29.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Wt031, Wt060.
- Parish Records of Langenschwarz.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 297 & 301.
Edward F. Wagner