Johann Wendel Bossler, second youngest of five children born to Johann Wendel Boßler and Maria Christina Hoffmann, was born in 1746 in Lichtenberg (Oberhessen).
He immigrated to Russia, arriving from Lübeck in the port of Oranienbaum on 4 July 1766 aboard the ship Der Junge Heinrich with skipper Heinrich Niemann at the helm. He settled in the Volga German colony of Straub where he is recorded on the 1767 Census in Household No. 36 with a new 15-year-old bride named Maria Katharina.
Kirschnick, Ulrich. Ortsfamilienbuch Gross-Bieberau
Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 237-238.
Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 147.