Riedel (Hölzel)
Johann Riedel, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children (Nikolaus, age 18; Johann, age 15; Andreas, age 13; Anna Maria, age 11½; Johann Georg, age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766 aboard the snow-brig Frei Gebruder under the command of Skipper Minzberger.
The unnamed widow of Johann Rohtel [sic] and her children (Johann Nicolaus, age 18; Johannes, age 15; Anna Maria, age 13; Andreas, age 9; Johann Georg, age 6) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Johann died and his widow Anna remarried to Nikolaus Grosser. The combined Grosser/Riedel family settled in the Volga German colony of Hölzel on 11 September 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 35.
The 1798 census of Seelmann records Johann Georg Riedel from Hölzel in Household No. Sm42.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that the Riedel family came from the German region of Trier.
- 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): Hz21, Hz37, Sm42.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 117.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5855.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #7805-7810.
Brent Mai