Susan: I saw your ancestor request on Ger-Volga and checked the Russian data. You are in luck because the Russian data is plentiful on your families. You need to find the connecting families here in the U.S, and we can do the rest. You should get the death certificates of your U.S. ancestors that were born in Russia. You can usually obtain these records from the county vital records where they died. Sometimes the State archives has the records. A death certificate usually contains the parent's of the deceased names and the village of birth. That should get you to Russia. If you send me the names, dates and places of your U.S. ancestors, I may be able to give you sources to find their data. The last census record generally available in Russia is the 1857, but neither the Frank or Walter census has been translated at this time. I understand Professor Brent Mai, of Concordia University in Oregon has it listed to be translated and printed for sale. The next best chance is the Pleve Charts of surnames for each village and both of your surname charts are available. These are family tree type charts. The Hofferber chart for the village of Frank can be purchased from Louise Potter, 306 N. Alder St., Toppenish, WA. 98949-1309. The Wiederspahn chart for the village of Walter, Frank and Brunnentalcan be purchased from the Central Washington Chapter of AHSGR, % Frank McLean, 3811 McLean Drive, Yakima, WA 98902-4836. These charts contain all of the surname ancestors in each village from when they arrived in Russia to when they left the village. In the meantime, I thought I would give you some data on the early German colonists that lived in Frank and Walter of Russia. You're again in luck because I found that there was only one Hofferber and one Wiederspahn family that emigrated to Russia. That means that all German Russian of each surname can be traced to one original settler of each surname. I checked the period from 1798 where I have all the Volga village census data, to 1766 when the colonists first arrived in Russia. On Sept 01, 1767, Johannes Hofferber (b 1723) and his family arrived in Frank, Russia. This included his wife, two sons and 2 daughters. The sons were Johann Leonard (b 1743) and Johann Nikolaus (b 1749). They were from Eurbach in what is now Germany. On August 25, 1767, Johann Heinrich Wiederspahn (b 1725) and his family arrived in Walter, Russia. This included his wife, 5 sons and 2 daughters. The sons were Johann Adam (b 1749), Johann Heinrich (b 1754), Georg Ernst (b. 1759), Johannes (b 1760) and Johann Leonard (b.1764). They were from Greihaar, Hanau. In 1798 the families were still in their respective villages. Now, we just have to connect your information with ours and the Pleve Charts could do that. I would suggest purchasing the charts. Let me know if you want help on your U.S. ancestors. Good Luck Jerry Goertzen