Martin Ross, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and son Johann Georg (age 17½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 28 July 1766 aboard a Russian pink named Vologda [an historic Russian city] under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Bartenyev.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 18 August 1767. Martin is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 27 with his new wife, Anna Katharina, the widow of Christoph Schneider. The Schneider stepchildren are recorded there as well.
Johann Georg Ross, his wife Sophia, and sons (Ludwig, age 5; Johann Heinrich, age 3½; Joseph, age 1) are recorded on the 1775 census of Norka in Household No. 132 along with his stepmother Anna Katharina and her son Johann Heinrich Schneider (age 20).
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Martin Ross came from the German district of Isenburg.
- 1775 Norka Census (Household No. 132).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 605.
- 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): Nr110, Nr139, Nr194.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 235.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4844.
Brent Mai