Johann Nau, a mason (Maurer), his wife Julianna, and his [step-]son Heinrich [Paul] (age 14) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 14 June 1766 aboard a ship named Die Neue Fortuna (The New Fortune) under the command of Skipper Ahrens Steingraber.
Johann Nau is recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
The settled in the Volga German colony of Preuss on 15 July 1767 where they are recorded on the 1767 census in Household No. 105.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Nau came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that Johannes Nau came from the German village of Rossdorf in the Kurmainz.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Nau family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 279.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 432.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2028.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1790.
Brent Mai