Christoph Schantz, a farmer, and his family settled in the Volga German colony of Messer on 7 July 1766. Christoph, his wife Maria Elisabeth, and children (Georg Adam, age 16; Maria Magdalena, age 11) are recorded on the 1767 census of Messer in Household No. 21.
In 1790, Christoph Schantz and his family moved from Messer to Franzosen.
The 1767 census records that Christoph Schantz came from the German village of Falkenstein.
- 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): Fz26, Ms48, Mv1726.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 136.
Brent Mai