Johann[es] Tress, a farmer, his wife Helena, and children (Anna, age 17½; Johann [Philipp], age 16¼; Agness, age 5¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 21 July 1766 aboard a koff named Alette under the command of Skipper Wybe Hendricks.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Urbach on 13 July 1767. Father Johannes died, and his widow Helena remarried to Lebrecht Kretzer. The combined Kretzer / Tress family is recorded on the 1767 census of Urbach in Household No. 17.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann[es] Tress came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that his widow Helena came from the German village of Alzey in the Kurpfalz region.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Tress family among the Volga German colonies.
- 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): 459.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 274.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3581.
Brent Mai