Jakob Kayser, son of cobbler Johann Adam Kayser & Anna Margarete Froschäuser, was born 8 July 1746 in Gelnhausen, east northeast of Frankfurt. He immigrated to Russia, but not before he married on 10 April 1766 in Büdingen to Elisabeth Fernberiger.
Jakob and Elisabeth arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 4 July 1766 aboard Der Junge Mathias with skipper David Wollert at the helm. They arrived in the colony of Dönhof on 18 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 60. They are still in Dönhof in 1798 recorded in Household No. Dh032 on the 1798 Census.
Frey, Julius. "Auswanderung aus den Kreisen Gelnhausen und Büdingen im Jahre 1766." Geschischisblätter Ürstadt und Kries Gelnhausen.
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).
Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt, German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): 65.
Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): Document No. 1877.