Michael Heiss [recorded as Geist], a farmer, and his family arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766 aboard the pink Lev under the command of Lieutenant Fyodor Fyodorov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Köhler on 10 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 9 [under the surname Heiss].
Gottlieb Heiss and his family are recorded on the 1857 census of Köhler in Household No. 165 along with a note that they relocated to the daughter colony of Josefstal in 1852.
Andreas Heiss and his family are recorded on the 1857 census of Köhler in Household No. 245 along with a note that they relocated to the daughter colony of Josefstal in 1852.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Geist [sic] came from the German region of Mainz while the 1767 census records that Johann Michael Heiss came from the German village of Aschaffenburg.
- 1834 Köhler Census (Household No. 56).
- 1857 Köhler Census (Household No. 164, 165, 245).
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Kl51, Kl57.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 361.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2346.
Dennis Haspert
Brent Mai
Max Greco