Johann Heinrich Kraus, son of Stoffel Kraus, was born 27 June 1734 in Spielberg. Johann Heinrich married there to Maria Barbara Bartholomeus, daughter of Johannes Bartholomeus, on 6 March 1755. Maria Barbara was born on 12 October 1732, also in Spielberg. Their son Georg Friedrich was also born in Spielberg on 24 August 1755.
Johann Kraus, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children (Friedrich, age 11; Konrad, age ½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
They arrived in the Volga German colony of Messer on 18 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 76.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Kraus came from the German region of Isenburg.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 250.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): Ms07, Ms44.
- Parish register of Spielberg.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 149.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1790.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai