Johann Nicolaus Fendel, son of Hartmann Fendel & Maria Margaretha Best, was born and baptized on 19 June 1746 in the Evangelical Church in Steinbach, about 15 kilometers northwest of Frankfurt am Main.
He emigrated to Russia, departing from Lübeck on the ship Der Junge Mathias with the skipper David Wollert at the helm. He arrived at the port in Oranienbaum on 4 July 1766.
Johann Nicolaus and his new bride, Elisabetha Hildt, arrived in the colony of Dönhof on 18 June 1767 where they are recorded on the 1767 census in Household No. 84. They are also recorded there on the 1798 Census in Household No. Dh55.
- 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 Steinbach (LDS Film No. 1272419).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 364.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 139.