Johann Thomas Herdt, son of Georg Herdt, was born 10 January 1726 in Rinderbügen. Anna Margaretha Wagner, daughter of Thomas Wagner, was born 5 July 1731 in Rinderbügen. The couple married on 20 February 1755. Two children were baptized in Rinderbügen: Anna Elisabeth, born 17 December 1755; and Johann Heinrich, born 13 December 1758. The family arrived in Russia on 4 July 1766. They settled in Messer and are recorded on the First Settler's List in Family #78.
There are two other Herdt families on the Messer First Settler's List who came from a different town in the Isenburg region.
- Facius List extractions
- Decker, Klaus-Peter. Die Auswanderung von 1766/67 aus der Grafschaft Ysenburg-Büdingen nach Russland, p. 128
- Parish records of Rinderbügen on Archion.de
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010) p. 130
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Nordost-Institute, 2005): p. 150
