Widow Gertrude Saltzmann, a farmer's wife, and her children settled in the Volga German colony of Louis on 14 June 1766. Gertrude Saltzmann and her sons (Johannes, age 10; Michael, age 7; Hans Peter, age 3) are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 43.
In 1787, Michael Saltzmann and his family moved from Louis to Mariental.
The 1767 census records that Gertrude Saltzmann came from the German village of Mittelsinn bei Aura in the region of Würzburg.
- 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): Ls10, Mt52, Mv1563.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 90.
Brent Mai