Bless (Kamenka)*
Johann Michael Bless, his unnamed wife, and one child immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) arriving in Flensburg on 1 May 1762. They are last recorded among the Danish colonies in June 1764.
They joined the migration to Russia, and settled in the Volga German colony of Kamenka on 6 July 1765. Johann Michael Pless [sic], his wife Maria Agnesia, and son Georg Friedrich (age 5) are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 31.
The Eichhorns record that Johann Michael Bless was a miller (Müller) while the 1767 census records that he was a farmer.
The 1767 census records that Johann Michael Bless came from the German village of Heilbronn am Neckar.
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- Eichhorn, Alexander, Jacob & Mary Eichhorn. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766 (Deiningen, Germany: Drukerei und Verlag Steinmeier GmbH & Co. Kg, 2012): B-1278.
- 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): Km096.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 223.
Brent Mai