Johannes Jacob Eckler, from Lauterecken in Rheinland-Palatinate, married Sybilla Gertrude Bachmann on 2 July 1765 in the Catholic Church of Bensberg, about 10 kilometers east of Cologne. Bensberg was incorporated into the municipality of Bergisch Gladbach, in North Rhein-Westphalia, in 1975.
Jacob and Gertrude emigrated to Russia, departing from Lübeck by the ship Apollo, with skipper Detlov Merberg at the helm. They arrived in Oranienbaum on 29 August 1766.
The Ecklers arrived in the Volga German colony of Pfeifer on 22 August 1767 where they are recorded on the 1767 Census in Household No. 91. The 1798 Census records them still living in Pfeifer in Household No. Pf81.
- 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 Bensberg (LDS Film No. 187235).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 399.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 328.