Laurent*
Nikolaus Laurent, a craftsman (Handwerker), his wife Anna Maria, and children (Georg, age 11; Katharina, age 10; Andreas, age 7; Anna, age 2½) settled in the Volga German colony of Louis on 14 June 1766. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 7.
The 1798 census of Louis records in Household No. Ls05 that Georg Lorang [sic] was captured by the Kirghiz in 1774 and held as a prisoner until 1776. Georg is recorded as a widower on the 1834 census of Louis in Household No. 84. Georg's death in 1836 is recorded on the 1850 census of Louis in Household No. 115. He died with no known surviving male heirs.
Beginning in 1798, this surname is recorded as Lorang.
The 1767 census records that Nikolaus Laurent came from the German village of Busendorf in the region of Lothringen.
- 1834 Louis Census (Household No. 84).
- 1850 Louis Census (Household No. 115).
- 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): Ls05, Ls13.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 81.
Brent Mai