Johann Heinrich Dierlam, a son of Johann Heinrich & Maria Dierlam, was born in Vadenrod, a village about 9 kilometers south of Alsfeld, in Hesse, and baptized on 21 April 1727 in the Evangelical Church of Hopfgarten, about 3 kilometers north of Vadenrod. He married to Elisabetha Eifert, daughter of Johann Heinrich Eifert, on 29 November 1748.
They had five known children, each born in Vadenrod and baptized in Hopfgarten: (1) Johann Heinrich, 5 May 1751; (2) Johann Caspar, on 21 November 1753; (3) Anna Maria, on 26 November 1756; (4) Elisabetha, on 8 October 1760; and (5) Johann Heinrich (again) on 26 March 1764.
Johann Heinrich Dierlam and his family emigrated to Russia, departing from Lübeck on an English frigate under skipper Adam Beerfeier. All of them arrived in Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766. On 3 August 1767 they arrived in de colony of Ernestinendorf where they are recorded in Household No. 03.
In 1769 Johann Heinrich and his family moved to Biberstein where his son Johann Caspar is recorded on the 1798 Census in Household No. Bb10.
- 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 Hopfgarten (LDS Film No. 1336965).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 396.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 306.