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 4 July 1766 aboard the ship Der Junge Mathias under the command of Skipper David Wollert. 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 1767 census records that Johann Reinhard Gerlach came from the German village of Poppenhausen in the region of Hanau.
- 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