Two Grabe families arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English barque named George under the command of Skipper Adam Bairnsfair.
Both of them settled in the Volga German colony of Boisroux on 7 June 1767. Their relationship to each other, if any, is not recorded on the 1767 census.
(1) Valentin Grabe married in 1761 to Agness Stössel, widow of Friedrich Ehrenberg.
Christian Grabe, his wife Agnese, and children (Dorothea, age 18; Willhelm [Ehrenberg], age 7) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767. [See Ehrenberg Family.]
Valentin Grabe, a farmer, his wife Agnesia, and [step-]son Wilhelm [Ehrenberg] (age 10) are recorded on the 1767 census of Boisroux in Household No. 24.
Widow Agnesia Grabbe née Stössel is recorded on the 1798 census of Boisroux in Household No. Bx05.
(2) Christian Grabe and his wife Elisabeth are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Christian Grabe, a farmer, and his wife Elisabeth are recorded on the 1767 census of Boisroux in Household No. 27.
The 1767 census records that Valentine Grabe came from the German village of Kochstedt in the Dessau region while Christian Grabe came from the region of Dessau.
An article by Hermann Wäschke records the following families going to Russia:
Christian Grabbe, with wife and 1 child, from Kochstedt in the district of Dessau.
Valentin Grabbe with his wife and child, from Kochstedt.
There are no known surviving male lines of these Grabe families among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 196.
- 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): Bx05.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #1072, #1073.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 144, 145.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1322, #1323.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0641-0646.
- Wäschke, Hermann. "Deutsche Familien in Russland" in Roland, Archiv für Stamm- und Wappenkunde, Jubiläumsschrift, 18 January 1912: 84.
Brent Mai
Waldemar Kurt