Christian Dönhof, a cobbler (Schuhmacher), and his family settled in the Volga German colony of Dönhof on 21 July 1766. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 1 along with a note recording that Christian Dönhof was serving as mayor (Vorsteher) of the colony. It is after Christian Dönhof that the colony of Dönhof received its name.
The 1767 census records that Christian Dönhof came from the German village of Gumbinnen in the region of Prussia.
- 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): Dh062.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 341.
Brent Mai