Johann Valentin Fuchs was born on 11 June 1735 in the village of Altenbach in the Kurpfalz. He immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) where he married Anna Maria Reitermann on 13 June 1760 in the colony of Thorning. She had been born in 1738.
Johann Valentin and Anna Maria had two children while living in the Danish colonies: Anna Cathrina, baptized 18 May 1761 in Friderichsheede, Karup Parish, Viborg AMT; and Georg Leonhardt, baptized 23 April 1763 in Friderichsmose, Karup Sogn, Viborg AMT.
In 1763, the Fuchs family immigrated to Russia, settling on 6 October 1764 in the colony of Anton. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 38.
- Lang, Gerhard. German Colonists of Denmark on the Volga.
- Danish parish record extractions by Wayne Bonner and Mike Meisinger
- Eichhorn, Alexander, Jacob & Mary. The Immigration of German Colonists to Denmark and Their Subsequent Emigration to Russia in the Years 1759-1766 (Deiningen, Germany: Steinmeier, 2012): p. 410
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 64.