Johann Reinhard Gerlach was married on 26 July 1763 in Babenhausen, straight south of Hanau, to Christina Sophia Heyer, daughter of Johann Peter Heyer & Anna Catharina Metzler.
Reinhard Gerlach, his wife Christina, and his mother Susanna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 11 June 1766 aboard a galliot named Der Junge Mattias (The Young Mattias) under the command of Skipper David Wohlert.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Dobrinka on 20 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census along with their newborn son Johann Philipp.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Reinhard Gerlach was a farmer while the 1767 census records that he was a craftsman (Handwerker).
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Reinhard Gerlach came from the German region of Hanau. The 1767 census records that Johann Reinhard Gerlach came from the German village of Poppenhausen in the region of Hanau.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 261.
- 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): Db75.
- Parish register of Babenhausen (LDS Film No. 1340328).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 335.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1876.
Brent Mai