David, you are correct the letter deals mainly with personal matters, however the end of the letter takes a different tone. After the date and signature of Andreas Reinefeld there is another section and I wonder now if it was an addendum, possibly written by someone else, added at the request of the government official? According to Hattie Plum Williams Czarina Catherine issued a 1785 Manifesto to attract more immigrants, but this time to the Dnieper River and Crimean peninsula. Williams writes that these letters from the Volga colonists were collected and used to convince friends and neighbors back in Germany that life was good in Russia. Here is the final portion of the Andreas Reinefeld correspondence: "If you write to me again, you must put an envelope around the letter. The address on the envelope should be made out to Herrn Georg Heinrich Rieger. It should be given to H.H. Emmendoerffer, innkeeper of the City of Ansbach in Frankfurt am Main. P.S. Again I beg that you will write to me taking advantage of this opportunity and it will not be in vain because the above mentioned H. Rieger is invested with full powers and has been sent by highest authority and he lives only a quarter of an hour from here. To David Reinefeld---Citizen and inhabitant in Oranienbaum near Dessau. " I now wonder if some of the relatives of our Volga immigrants in fact enrolled and ended up in the colonies near the Dnieper River and Crimea? And I also wonder who is this Rieger fellow? I do find a Heinrich Rieger, 19, from Wuertemberg in the FSL for Enders, which is not far from Schwed. Is this simply a coincidence? He would be 30 years old in 1788 when the Reinefeld letter was written. Was he dispatched to Germany to help recruit? More questions than answers... What do you think? Tim In a message dated 1/25/2014 9:38:35 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com writes: Fred Betz asked about mail service between the Volga colonies and Germany during the last quarter of the 18th century (see below). Tim Weeder mentioned the letter from Andreas Reinefeld of Schwed, which is held in the Sachsen-Anhalt State Archive (Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt). As Tim described, that letter was written by Mr. Reinefeld back to his relatives in Germany. But as I understand it, the letter was not written or used to attract other colonists. It was written to direct Mr. Reinefeld's relatives what to do with his property in Germany and to let them know how he was doing in Schwed. The reason the letter was preserved, I believe, is because it was used as legal authority for the transfer of Mr. Reinfeld's property. The Reinefeld letter is the only one I have seen or heard of between the Volga colonies and Germany in the 18th century. In 30 years of Volga German research, the only other thing from the 18th century that I have seen from the Volga colonies is a book evidently brought by the Stahlbaum (Stallbaum) family from Germany to Boaro Colony. As I recall, the book had an ancient-looking leather cover and dealt with calculations or measurements of some kind. It would be interesting to hear of other examples of correspondence or belongings from the Volga colonies in the 18th century. David F. Schmidt VC for Boaro, Caesarsfeld & Stahl am Karaman Email: _schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com_ (mailto:schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com) Hi all, I hope this is ok. Folks don't seem to be asking these kinds of questions lately. I'm reading a history of Germany which refers to the Imperial Post as one of the few viable institutions in the late Holy Roman Empire. Since I have letters from family members in Russia from the 20s and 30s, the relative viability of postal communication between the Volga colonists and their American relatives has been an issue for me. Were our ancestors able to communicate with their German relatives during the last quarter of the 18th century? Do any such letters exist? Thanks, Fred Betz Messer, Nue Messer David F. Schmidt Contra Costa County Counsel's Office Email: _David.Schmidt@cc.cccounty.us_ (mailto:David.Schmidt@cc.cccounty.us) and _schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com_ (mailto:schmidtdavidf@yahoo.com) Telephone: 925-451-6632 (cell)