There are 3 Spiess families that settled in the Volga German colony of Chasselois on 2 August 1766.
(1) Wenzel Spiess, a farmer, his new wife, and his siblings are recorded on the 1767 census of Chasselois in Household No. 21.
(2) Johannes Spiess, a farmer, his previously widowed wife Barbara, and her sons Wilhelm & Nikolaus Gross are recorded on the 1767 census of Chasselois in Household No. 22. In 1789, Johannes Spiess moved from Graf to Louis.
(3) Jakob Spiess, a single farmer, is recorded on the 1767 census of Chasselois in Household No. 29.
Following the destruction of Chasselois, these Spiess families relocated to the colony of Louis.
The 1767 census records that each of these Spiess families came from the German village of Saarburg in the Trier region.
- 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): Ls13, Ls27, Ls31, Ls42, Mv0732.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 255, 257.
Brent Mai