Family Search has a collection of Revision Lists (Census Records) that were microfilmed at the Samara Archive in 2003. These records are generally for settlements on the Wiesenseite (east or meadow side) of the Volga River. This collection includes Volga German Village revision lists for years from 1850 - 1862. Initially, the images were only available on microfilm. Eventually the images were digitized and made freely available to anyone who can access the Family Search web site (a free account is required to view the documents).
Even after they were digitized, they were difficult to use for those of us who are not fluent in Russian. The film descriptions on the main page for the collection list the Fond, Opus and Delo (archives file numbers) that are included on each film, but that isn't helpful if you don't know what villages correspond to those file numbers. Even if you knew which film included a specific village, you had to scroll through the images until you found the village you needed, and since the records are entirely in Russian, you would need to understand enough Russian to be able to read the cover sheet at the beginning of each village.
There is now a solution to that problem. The Family Search Wiki has a page devoted to these records. The village names are listed in alphabetical order and the year of each Revision List is noted. The film numbers that correspond to each village are listed, and the image numbers where each villages' records can be found are listed. There is a link that takes you directly to the images for each village. That page can be found here.
I stated above that these records are generally for villages on the Wiesenseite. Careful observers will notice the list includes villages on the Bergseite (west or hilly side) of the Volga River). These records are generally not complete censuses for those villages. They are lists of the colonists who left those Bergseite villages to settle in daughter colonies on the Wiesenseite. For example, if you follow the link for the village of Walter and scroll through the images, you will see groups of settlers noted as moving to Brunnental, Hoffental, Langenfeld, and Neu-Hussenbach.
There is also a thread on the Wolgadeutsche.net forum providing similar information. That listing provides more detail about where the daughter colony movement lists can be found on each film. That listing can be found here.
At the present time, these records are not indexed on the Family Search website. Many of these records have been translated over the two decades since they were filmed.
Sources and Links:
Revision List Records for Volga Germans - Family Search Wiki
Revision Lists: Novouzensk (district): Volga Germans, 1850-1862 on Family Search
Information about Revision Lists filmed by Family Search on the Wolgadeutsche.net forum (thank you to Trecil Dreiling for providing this link).
Census Records (Revision Lists), blog Part 1 of 2
© Margreatha Hein, 2023
