Johannes Rudolph, son of Johann & Anna Barbara Rudolph, was born on 8 February 1720 and baptized on 9 February 1720 in the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Langstadt, located between Darmstadt and Hanau. He married Johanna (Anna) Christina Spiel on 11 Jan 1746 in Langstadt.
They had six children, each baptized in Langstadt: (1) Anna Margaretha, born on 10 November 1746; (2) Ottilia, born on 26 December 1748; (3) Andreas, born on 27 February 1751; (4) Johann Heinrich, born on 10 May 1752; (5) Anna Maria, born on 24 January 1755; and (6) Michael, born on 17 August 1761.
Johannes Rudolph, his wife and their children Johann Heinrich, Anna Maria & Michael immigrated to Russia, departing from the port of Lübeck by the ship Die Perle with the skipper Thomson, and arriving in Oranienbaum, Russia, on 18 June 1766.
The Rudolphs arrived in the Volga German colony of Straub on 12 May 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 6. By the time of the Straub 1798 Census, his widow and descendants are recorded in Households No. Sr02 & Sr03.
- 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 Langstadt (LDS Film No. 1340337).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Nordost-Institut, 2008): 230-231.
- Pleve, Igor. List of Colonists to Russia in 1766 "Reports by Ivan Kulberg" (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 85.