Johann Georg Kniss, son of Johannes Kniss, and Maria Margaretha Franck, daughter of Johann Heinrich Franck of Radmühl, were married in Büdingen on 14 April 1763. Maria Margaretha was baptized on 20 October 1730 in Unterreichenbach. They had one child according to the Büdingen parish records: Sabina Henrietta, baptized on 26 February 1764.
Johann Georg Kniss, a farmer, his wife Maria Margaretha, and daughter Anna Christina [sic] (age 2½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a pinque named Slon (Elephant) under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 81.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Georg Kniss was a farmer while the 1767 census records that he was a craftsman (Handwerker).
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Georg Kniss came from the German region of Isenburg.
[The 1798 translation errantly recorded the surname as Geiss (Nr073).]
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 516.
- 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): Nr073, Nr152.
- Parish records of Büdingen.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 250.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4050.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai