There are a several documents that record Griesbach families. Further research is necessary to determine whether the documents refer to one or more families.
Franz [sic] Griesbach, a farmer, and his wife Anna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766 aboard an English frigate under the command of Skipper Adam Beerfeier.
Frantz Grissbach [sic] and his wife Anna Maria are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Philipp Griesbach, a weaver (Weber), and his wife Anna are recorded on a list of Beauregard recruits appended to the 1767 census in Household No. 45 along with orphan Wilhelm Meier (age 13). The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Griesbach and Meier families.
Philipp Griesbach and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Luzern in Household No. Lz13 along with a note that he is living with his wife in the colony of Graf.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Franz [sic] Griesbach came from the German region of Pfalz. The 1767 census records that Philipp [sic] Griesbach came from the German village of Sogerheim [?].
Regardless of whether these documents refer to one or more Griesbach families, there are no known surviving male lines of any Griesbach family among the Volga German colonies.
- 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): Lz13.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 358.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4603.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5891-5892.
Brent Mai