Joseph Gammerstrath was born in about 1737 in Staffort, north of Karlsruhe (today in Baden-Württemberg). He immigrated to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) where he settled in the colony of Christiansheide first on 7 December 1761 on the farmstead of Bärens Hof, moving on 31 October 1762 to the farmstead of Basballes Hof.
He immigrated to Russia, settling in the colony of Beideck, where he married Maria Margaretha Zwecker, widow of Johann Matthias Grünemeier. She had been born on 30 January 1719 in Graben Neudorf. Joseph Gammerstrath is recorded as a widower on the 1798 census of Beideck in Household No. Bd36. It is not believed that the surname of Gammerstrath continued among the Volga German colonies.
- Clausen, Otto. Chronik der Heide- und Moorkolonisation im Herzogtum Schleswig, 1760-1765 (Husum: Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, 1981): 850.
- Lang, Gerhard. German Colonists of Denmark on the Volga.
- 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).