There are two Ruhl households recorded on the 1767 census of the Volga German colony of Kraft. Both arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a barque named Fortitudo (Fortitude) under the command of Skipper John Scott. Their relationship to each other is not recorded on the 1767 census.
(1) Andreas Ruhl, a farmer, and his wife Anna arrived in Oranienbaum.
Andreas settled in the Kraft on 18 August 1767 and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 10 along with his new wife Anna Maria and her siblings (Sophia [Lotz], age 13; Johann Konrad [Lotz], age 8).
The Büdingen marriage register records the marriage of Johann Andreas Ruhl from Langenschwartz & Anna Maria Lotz from Langenschwartz on 14 May 1766.
(2) Sebastian Ruhl, a farmer, his wife Anna, daughter Elisabeth (age 18), and father Johann arrived in Oranienbaum.
They settled in Kraft on 18 August 1767 and Widow Anna Maria is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 71.
The Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census both record that these Ruhl families came from the German region of Alsfeld.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 463, 467.
- 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): Kf35, Kf53.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #648.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 396, 411.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3622, #3644.
Brent Mai