The world of probabilities is ambiguous, which touchs on some DNA research. Definitely, DNA backed up with history and written record is superior. However, it is well established that if a person’s DNA is left at a scene where an event took place and that DNA can be shone to be at that place at the time of that event, the inference can be made sufficiently strong to incarcerate a person or release that person from incarceration. Y DNA has the advantage of having an internal “clock type feature” which roughly marks off time in 25 year increments, allowing the time of events to be estimated with a degree of probability. Absolute, certainly not. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: J. Kuhlberg's list. Dr. Plevy, Saratov Archives, Russia 1997 Among the first colonists in the end of 1767, only one Catholic family is registered, the one of Johann Carl Claus(Klaus). He is a ploughman, 23 years old, arrived from Hohen Friedenberg or Hohen Friededberg (the first colonists record lists had been made by Russian clerks by ear and have certain inaccuracies.) His wife is Margaretha, 24 years old. They arrived at the Volga on Aug 17, 1766, and were temporarily, until spring 1768, settled in Paulskaja colony. Johann Carl arrived in Russia, in Oranienbaum (near Petersburg) on Aug 10,1766 on board a warship from Lubeck,where the colonists'collection station was located. In J.Kuhlberg's record list he is registered as single. It means means that he had married during his way to the Volga. We can say with a high degree of probability, that it was Johann Carl who gave rise to all the Catholics named Claus (Klaus). But the absence of church documents of the first decade of their living on the Volga do not enable us to confirm this supposition documentarily. Dr. Plevy; Saratov University ------------------------------------------------------- Sources:Russian American Genealogical Archives Service # 826, June 1998. RAGAS Registry book of baptism of Roman Catholic Church, of Catharinenstadt Parish, 1827-1835. Engels archive, fond 221, op.1, #11, p.100. entry #88. Born15, baptized Nov 15, 1834, in Roman Catholic Church of Obermonjou, Peter son of Caspar Klaus. Parents: colonists Caspar Klaus and Marianna Konrad, legal couple. Born in colony of Obermonjou, Catharinestadt Parish. Godparents Peter Leiker, Elizabeth Konradi from Obermonjou. Family noted DOB as Nov 1832 or 1834; Russian Archive shows Nov. 15, 1834 as DOB. National Archives, Washington, D.C., Passenger list, S.S. Donau, arriving July 20, 1878, New York from Bremen, passengers numbers 294 through 302. The Russian records show that a Catholic German colonist family of 23 year old Johann Carl Claus was registered as arriving on the Volga in 1767. This family was shown to have settled in the Paulskaja Colony in 1768. We have no record of what happened to the Claus family until Gottfried Claus (born about 1777) appears on the 1816 Census of neighboring Obermonjou, Russia. My question is, is there a 1798 Census of the Paulskaja colony, or neighboring colonies which would record this Gottfried person, born in 1777? I recognize that church records often did not exist for this period. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sources: J. Kuhlberg's list. Dr. Plevy, Saratov Archives, Russia 1997 Among the first colonists in the end of 1767, only one Catholic family is registered, the one of Johann Carl Claus(Klaus). He is a ploughman, 23 years old, arrived from Hohen Friedenberg or Hohen Friededberg (the first colonists record lists had been made by Russian clerks by ear and have certain inaccuracies.) His wife is Margaretha, 24 years old. They arrived at the Volga on Aug 17, 1766, and were temporarily, until spring 1768, settled in Paulskaja colony. Johann Carl arrived in Russia, in Oranienbaum (near Petersburg) on Aug 10,1766 on board a warship from Lubeck,where the colonists'collection station was located. In J.Kuhlberg's record list he is registered as single. It means means that he had married during his way to the Volga. We can say with a high degree of probability, that it was Johann Carl who gave rise to all the Catholics named Claus (Klaus). But the absence of church documents of the first decade of their living on the Volga do not enable us to confirm this supposition documentarily. Dr. Plevy; Saratov University ------------------------------------------------------- I’ve been doing some background work on Hohenfriedeberg, the origin of the first documented Klaus. His spouce, Konradi was listed as from Silesia. The locations are one and the same. The first battle was Silesian was in 1742. What is interesting is that if they (Klaus) arrived with the first German Catholics invited by the Prussians, they would to have to arrive no earlier than 1743- 1744; a pretty short stay before heading for the Volga in 1765. The Prussian invited German Catholics in as farmer colonists. They did not have the land before 1742. However they had recruited western Europeans as early as 1509. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The Second Silesian War took place from 1744 to 1745. The Austrians had lost Silesia to Prussia in the Battle of Mollwitz. This was the time when the Austrians, under the command of Field Marshal Otto Ferdinand von Abensberg und Traun, made the attempt to gain control of Silesia once again. The Prussians were again led by King Frederick the Great who had continued the expansionist policy of his father. The Battle of Hohenfriedeberg on June 4, 1745 was fought through a “series of separate actions”, with each part of the Prussian army fighting its own uncoordinated battle. Because the Saxons and Austrians were unable to support each other during the battle they “Allowed the Prussians time to recover from their own tactical lapses and win a victory that was significant enough to give the battle’s name to one of Germany’s greatest marches”, They retained Silesia ____________________________________________________________________________________ Frederick the Great was keenly interested in land use, especially draining swamps and opening new farmland for colonizers who would increase the kingdom's food supply. He called it "peopling Prussia" (Peuplierungspolitik). About a thousand new villages were founded in his reign that attracted 300,000 immigrants from outside Prussia. He told Voltaire, "Whoever improves the soil, cultivates land lying waste and drains swamps, is making conquests from barbarism".[91] Using improved technology enabled him to create new farmland through a massive drainage program in the country's Oderbruch marsh-land. This program created roughly 150,000 acres of new farmland, but also eliminated vast swaths of natural habitat, destroyed the region's biodiversity, and displaced numerous native communities. Frederick saw as this project as the "taming" and "conquering" of nature, which, in its wild form, he regarded as "useless" and "barbarous" (an attitude that reflected his enlightenment-era, rationalist sensibilities).[92] He presided over the construction of canals for bringing crops to market, and introduced new crops, especially the potato and the turnip, to the country.[93] ___________________________________________________________________ Frederick eventually ended up controlling both the Danzig area and Silesia, partially after his father died in and the subdivision of Poland in 1709, when he began recruiting German farmers in earnest, freely expressing his distaste for most things Polish, stating that he wanted to replace every Pole with a German. While the early Prussians recruited Netherland Mennonites to work on reclaiming the swamp land as early as 1509, and while the Mennonites existed peacefully with the Catholic Germans, it is not clear when Frederick started his recruitment. ____________________________________________________________________________ Suffice it to say that a male Klaus descendant from Silesia, tested positive with Y DNA for sharing a common ancestor with Palatine, Germans who migrated to the Pennslyvannia and Virginia colonies about 1713, as well as being a direct descendant of some Silesian Germans who later occupied Obermonjou , Russia in the 1760s and Ellis County, Kansas. Frank Jacobs