Christoph Ries (born in 1731) and his wife Anna Guntin (born in 1733) lived in the village of Wössingen. They and their son Urban (born in 1749) immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) and settled in the colony of Neuduvenstedt. He married there in the colony of Bünsdorf on 27 June 1765 to Christine Diesler. She died in 1766.
The Ries family immigrated to Russia in 1766, arriving at the port in Oranienbaum on 3 June 1766 aboard the Lübeck galliot "Adler". They settled in the colony of Dinkel on 27 July 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 39 with son Urban and a new wife Maria Magdalena (surname unknown) living next door in Household No. 40.
- Lang, Gerhard. German Colonists of Denmark on the Volga .
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 307.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 66.