Johann[es] Gross, a farmer, his wife Anna Regina, and daughter Anna (age 5) arrived from Danzig at the port of Oranienbaum on 29 April 1766 aboard a two-masted merchant ship named Der Kleine Andreas (The Little Andrew) under the command of Skipper Jacob Jensen.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Schwed on 12 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 3 along with newborn son Johann Martin (age 2-weeks).
The 1767 census records that Johannes Gross came from the German town of Königsberg in the region of Prussia.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Gross family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 140.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #31.
Brent Mai