Johann Michael Gosmann, son of Johann Adam & Agnetis Gosmann, was baptized on 21 December 1731 in the St. Stephan's (Sankt Stephan) Catholic Church in the city of Mainz, the capital of Rheinland-Palatinate.
He and his wife emigrated to Russia, departing from Lübeck by the pink Lev under the command of Lieutenant Fyodor Fyodorov. They arrived at the Russian port of Oranienbaum on 22 July 1766.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Göbel on 20 August 1767 where they are recorded on the 1767 census in Household No. 11. On the 1798 Census, they are still recorded in Göbel in Household No. Gb03.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999).
- Parish records of Mainz (LDS Film No. 949598).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 40.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 165.