Johann Heinrich Schäfer, son of Johann Peter Schäfer, and Catharina Neeb, daughter of Johannes Neeb, married in Kestrich on 25 July 1726. Among their children was Johann Martin Schäfer, born 6 January, baptized 9 January 1746, in Kestrich.
Johann Martin Schäfer married in Büdingen, Germany, on 24 February 1766 to Anna Margaretha Diehl (Tiehll/Thiel), from the village of Hochst, Wetterau-Hesse, Germany. The Diehl lineage can be traced back several generations to Johann Peter Diehl and Anna Elisabeth Höyer of Düdelsheim, Nidda-Hesse, Germany.
The couple arrived in Russia on 30 May 1766, on the same ship as many other settlers in Frank. They are reported on the Frank First Settler's List in Family #9.
- Parish records of Gross-Felda on Archion.de.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): 44.
- Stumpp, Karl. The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the years 1763 to 1862. (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1982), p. 153
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010) p. 55
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): p. 420
