Michael Obholz, a farmer, and his family settled in the Volga German colony of Louis on 14 June 1766 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 15.
In 1788, Peter Opholz and his family moved from Louis to Mariental along with the Widow Maria Opholz and her family.
The 1767 census records that Michael Obholz came from the German village of Bitsch in the region of Lothringen.
Descendants of this family use the surname of Obholz and Opholz.
- 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): Ls09, Mt05, Mt13, Mv1575, Mv1576.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 86.
Brent Mai