Families with the surname Drefs1 were found not only in Krasna but also in three other colonies in Bessarabia: Katzbach, Dennewitz, and Neu-Arzis2. No kinship has yet been established between the Krasna clan (Catholic) and the others (Protestant). As far as can be determined, no members from the aforementioned locations eventually moved to Krasna. The Drefs of Krasna came from the Odessa area (Liebental district).
Two sources cite West Prussia as the region of origin for the Drefs:
Where, then, did the Krasnaer Drefs come from, if not from the neighboring Protestant colonies of Krasna?
They were Catholic and immigrated to the Odessa region. We know of their arrival in the Russian Empire in 1814 from the first entry in our search for the Krasnaer Drefs. It is found in a key source on the internal resettlement of colonists within Russia to Bessarabia:
„Kishinev Archive (Moldova State Archive, Chişinău), Fond 134 -Kanzlei des Bessarabischen Gouvernements, Opis 2, Delo 689- „Movement of Colonists within and to Bessarabia”.
There we find: „September 11, 1842, Großliebental #157 to Krasna Drefs, Michael, 34 years old, wife Elisabetha, 25, sons: Franz, 8, Johann, 3, daughters: Christiana, 5, Margaretha, 5, arrived in 1814.” (All ages correspond to the information in the 1835 revision list-see below-).
The entry contains basic information about the family:
The Drefs family's move to Krasna is confirmed by the 1850 Census for Krasna:
# 137 Michael Drefs, 50 (came from Großliebental in 1843)-
Wife: Elisabetha, 46; sons: Franz, 22, and Johannes, 18; daughters: Margaretha, 20, and Christianna, 20 (twins).
The names of the family members in both documents match exactly. This also applies to the ages, except for the wife's. The age difference for everyone should be between 1835 and 1850 = approx. 15 years, but for the wife it is 21 years, i.e., if she was 25 years old in 1835, she was not born in 1804, as the figure in the census suggests, but in 1810/1811.
This provides sufficient evidence of the family composition, including ages, for further research:
Michael Drefs * ca. 1800, wife Elisabetha * ca. 1810, children Franz * ca. 1828, Johannes * ca. 1832, Margaretha and Christiana * 1832. Only one family of this name moved to Krasna, namely the one from #157 in Großliebental.
Although the name Drefs occurs more frequently in the Liebental district, it is very unlikely that there was another Drefs family with exactly the same composition. Now that we know the family that moved to Krasna, we will attempt to determine their origin and the route they took to get there.
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There isn't much information available from the Odessa region about the Drefs family, and certainly none that is publicly accessible. There are references online to various documents that are said to contain information about Michael Drefs in the Liebental district. However, they are not easy to verify. For one thing, the first name Michael is quite common among the Drefs families. There are several instances of a wife named Elisbeth, but with varying surnames, which often leads to misinterpretations in the sources found. |
There is good reason to believe that the Krasnaer Drefs were Catholic and came from West Prussia, since they did not move to Russia until 1814, whereas Drefs families from Germany had already moved there between 1803 and 1809.
For many of these so-called „Warsaw colonists,” colonies in the Odessa region (which had been settled as early as 1803/04) served as their first port of call. Some of the „Warsaw” settlers, who were actually intended for Bessarabia, were left by the Russian administration in existing colonies in the Odessa region - including the Liebental colonies.
Some researchers identify Michael Drefs's parents as: father Johannes Drefs4 * ca. 1770-1775 in West Prussia/Poland, mother Anna Maria * ?. The family likely lived in the region around Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) or in the Marienwerder area between ca. 1801 and 1814. Perhaps they moved to Russia via a stopover in Central Poland (then South Prussia), presumably near Gombin (Gabin) or Plozk (Plock). The latter may explain the note „West Prussia/Poland” in Stumpp.
Michael was born in Poland around 1800; he was about 14 years old when he immigrated.
At first, the father did not receive his own full farmstead (approx. 60 desyatinas) in Kleinliebental. Instead, the family was registered as „Beisitzer” (landless). Johannes Drefs most likely died before 1835. In the 1835 revision list (Delo 210), Michael is already listed as the independent head of his household.
The Drefs are certainly not a founding family in the Großliebental settler district. The name does not appear in the early censuses (1811, 1816). Neither Stumpp nor Keller list them as early settlers. The Drefs family is absent from the relevant GRHS5 lists for 1812, 1813, and 1816, meaning they were not among the first settlers of Josefstal, Kleinliebental, and Großliebental. The Drefs family must have migrated to the Liebental district later, either from another Black Sea colony, from Bessarabia, or directly from West Prussia: One can assume this occurred no later than 1820, as birth records for children begin to appear in church registers from this time onward (see below). There is documented evidence of a group of named colonists arriving between 1819 and 1821; unfortunately, the Drefs family is not among them.
The Drefs are not mentioned either in two documents from Kleinliebental dating from 1820-1825 that are in our possession (Source: Odessa Regional State Archive, Odessa, Ukraine. Files 63-2-40, 63-2-91 und File 252-1-277. Language: Old German. Found by Valery Mock - 2003):
The list „JOSEPHSTAL ROMAN CATHOLIC PARISH CHURCH, BAPTISMS November 1829 - August 1835: includes the Villages of Josephstal, Franzfeld, Mariental, Kleinliebental”6,7 is, to date, the first publicly available clear evidence that at least one Drefs family lived in the Liebental district around 1830. The name Drefs is mentioned twice in it: Drefs: page 48, Treffs: page 11. Three children of Michael Drefs are possible candidates: Johannes in 1832, the girls as twins in 1830. Franz was already born in 1828.
Here is the list of children on the pages mentioned:There are indications in the records that Michael (*1800) was either registered in Kleinliebental as a self-supporting head of household at Farm 20 or listed there as a „Beisitzer” (landless individuals or families with a small amount of land). However, the available historical sources are not conclusive.
It is also unclear whether the family moved. The documents mention various residences where the Drefs family is said to have lived. The information found regarding the farms/houses they used varies depending on the documents consulted. This may be due to the fact that between the colony's initial settlement (1804) and the revision of 1835, renumbering and shifts in numbers occasionally took place. Sometimes the numbering also changed even though the family remained on the same farm, simply because documents used different numbering systems: either (consecutive counting of families) or actual house numbers in the village.
Conclusion: There is strong evidence to suggest that the family were not farm owners but tenants, for if they had been farm owners, there would have had to be very compelling reasons to prompt them to undertake the arduous journey to Krasna. If Michael had been in line to inherit a debt-free farm, he would likely have stayed.
The last record of the family in Kleinliebental is the
:
1835 Kleinliebental Census List (Fond 6, Opis 1, Delo 210) - the key census list for the Catholic branch of the Drefs family, who moved to Krasna.
It lists Michael Drefs along with his entire family and his citizenship: Michael Drefs (approx. 35 years old), wife Elisabetha, children Franz, Johannes, Margaretha, Christiana. The names and ages in this revision list match perfectly with the 1842 resettlement list listed above. At the end of 18358, the family then likely moved to Großliebental.
Why did Michael Drefs, a Catholic, move to the Protestant colony of Großliebental in 1835?
It is very likely that Michael Drefs (*1800) did not own a farm in Kleinliebental9. Since Großliebental was the economic center of the Liebental district, some Catholic families from the neighboring villages also moved there. They often lived on smaller plots of land and worked as day laborers, craftsmen (blacksmiths, wheelwrights), or tenants for wealthier landowners.
Michael Drefs did the same. He is documented in:
Revised revision list 1835, Signatur DAKO, Fond 6, Opis 1, Delo 21091 (Großliebental)10:
This is a tax and administrative correction list for the municipality of Großliebental. It covers the entire locality (all denominations) for tax purposes. The Catholic Michael Drefs appears here under No. 157 only because he was physically residing in Großliebental at the time of the census. This high house number suggests that Michael was registered there as a „beisitzer” (landless) or as a craftsman11, since the high numbers were reserved for craftsmen, day laborers, and „foreign” families who did not possess full land rights (a farm) in the colony but were required to be registered there.
In addition, Michael was legally registered as a „citizen„ in Kleinliebental - see above. His family simply does not appear in the Protestant church records because they belonged to the Kleinliebental/Josefstal parish12.
This Catholic, Michael Drefs, moved to Krasna. At the time of the 1835 census (i.e., late 1835-early 1836), he was physically residing in the Protestant village of Großliebental (house no. 157). However, this was merely a change of residence (likely as a tenant or landless person), not a change of religious affiliation. He continued to belong to the Catholic parish (Kleinliebental/Josefstal).
Since he was officially registered in Großliebental under No. 157, he was listed under that number in the 1842 immigrant register (document „Movement of Colonists within and to Bessarabia”), and we know that the family was registered in Krasna in 1843.
The family must have lived in Krasna, at least intermittently, even before their official relocation in 1843. Michael Drefs and his wife Elisabetha had a child baptized in Krasna as early as 1837. This explains why some settlers were already residing in the new colony before the bureaucratic formalities for their release from the old municipality (Großliebental/Kleinliebental) had been officially completed.
The date 1842/43 in the audit lists likely only marks the point in time when the family was removed from the tax rolls of the old colony and added to those of the new one.
Baptismal records are fairly reliable evidence of actual whereabouts. If Michael and Elisabetha had their child baptized in Krasna in 1837, they were physically present there at that time.
Apart from the central source described above regarding the resettlement of colonists to and within Bessarabia - „Moldova State Archive, Chişinău Fond Opis 2, Delo 689 - Movement of Colonists within and to Bessarabia” - we have the following sources available for Krasna:
Krasna Baptismal Register:
Baptismal records are fairly reliable evidence of a person's actual whereabouts. When Michael and Elisabetha were baptized in Krasna in 1837, they were physically present there at that time. This proves that the family was already living in Bessarabia five years before their official removal from the Odessa region (1842/43).
Baptism Registers; Nov. 1814-Oct. 1837; St Joseph Catholic Church, Krasna/Bess
# 467 * 21-05-1837 Child to be baptized: Piotr (Peter) Drews (Drefs?), + August 25, 183813,
Parents: Michal (Michael) Drews (Drefs?), wife Elizabetha (Elisabeta) ?
The fact that the entry is listed in Krasna (Bessarabia), even though the family was recorded in Kleinliebental (Odessa) in 1835, indicates that the family maintained close social and religious ties to Bessarabia.
CENSUS 1850 Krasna
# 137 Michael Drefs 50 (came from Großliebental in 184314) -
Wife: Elisabetha, 46, sons Franz 22, Johannes 18, Daughters: Margaretha 20 (Gemini), Christianna 20 (Gemini).
The names and ages of the children in this document correspond exactly with the birth records of the Catholic parishes in the Liebental district.
As we have seen, the Drefs family was effectively present in Krasna as early as around 1837, but was not legally registered until 1843 as a permanently settled immigrant family from the Odessa colonies under No. 137.
1852 Krasna Colony List of Parishioners Fond 1166, Opus 1, Delo 409,
38 DREFS Michael 51 Head, Elisabetha 50 Wife, Franz 20 Son, Elisabetha 19 Wife of Franz, Johann 18 Son.
By moving to Krasna, Michael Drefs attained the status of a landowner with a full land allotment. He is the progenitor of the Drefs line in Krasna.
Interestingly, the Drefs family remained a prominent presence in Krasna for generations, until many of their descendants emigrated to North and South America in the late 19th century (around 1890), as land eventually became scarce in Bessarabia as well.
There is a detailed local family history book (OFB) for Krasna, which documents the descendants of Michael and Elisabeth up until their resettlement in 1940.
The aforementioned documents list Michael Drefs's wife's first name as Elisabetha. However, we do not yet know her last name. A number of names have been mentioned in various publications: Söhn, Hartmann, Fichs, Sahli, and others. The names Fix and Sahli seem to be the most plausible.
As far as can be determined, the wife's surname appears only in the Krasna baptismal register, in the entry for their son Peter Drefs (*1837). However, it is illegible. It could be interpreted as Fiksowa (Fix) or Salowa (Sali). It is particularly relevant here that Polish priests kept the Krasna church records until around 1850. At that time, in the Polish language, the following spelling was used for female surnames - to put it simply:
either like this: Sahli became Sahl-i-owa (which sounds more natural to native Polish speakers if the name is to be retained as a loanword),
or something like this: Sahli became Sahl-owa (without the "i") (this was more common when the family had been living in Poland for a long time and the name was inflected like a typical Polish name).
Now let's look at the facts we have, which point more toward Sahli than toward Fix.
The document cited above, Opis 2, Delo 689 -„Movement of Colonists within and to Bessarabia” -states that the wife was 25 years old in 1835 (revision). An age of 25 in 1835 implies a birth year of approximately 1810.
This matches perfectly with Elisabeth (age 5) in the household of Cyriakus Sahli (HH 84) in the 1816 census. (1811 + 5 = 1816; 1810 + 25 = 1835).
Another point that confirms this: The family members listed for Krasna in the 1850 Census match those in the Movement list above, which used age data from the 1835 revision. The names match exactly. And this also applies to the ages, except for the wife's. The age difference for everyone between 1835 and 1850 should be approximately 15 years, but for the wife it is 21 years, i.e., if she was 25 years old in 1835, she was not born in 1804, as the figure in the census suggests, but in 1810/1811. This means that the age of 46 listed in the 1850 Krasna census was therefore an estimate or a clerical error (she would actually have been about 40 years old).
The age information points to Elisabeth Sahli. However, there are other factors that cast doubt on Elisabeth Fix, born April 9, 1804 (and she is the only one of the relevant age).
Conclusion: The wife is more likely to be Elisabeth Sahli (Sali), the daughter of Cyriakus Sahli from Kleinliebental, rather than Elisabeth Fix from Franzfeld.
Eduard Volk
Neuwied, Mai 2026
Eduard's ancestor is Klemens VOLK