Johann Andreas Metzler, son of Johann Heinrich Metzler & Anna Magdalena Nenner, was born on 27 April 1719 in Langstadt, north of Gross-Umstadt in Hessen. He married first to Elisabetha Catharina Dörr, daughter of Andreas Dörr & Maria Margaretha Daniel, on 17 February 1750 in Gross-Biberau, southeast of Darmstadt. She had been born there on 6 February 1721.
They had a number of children in Gross-Bieberau including Georg Philipp (born 16 June 1754) and Georg Nicolaus (born 5 February 1757). Elisabetha Catharina died on 15 September 1763, and Andreas remarried in Gross-Bieberau on 4 September 1764 to Anna Barbara Keil, daughter of Johann Keil. They had one son (Johannes, born 13 March 1766) before leaving for Russia.
Andreas and his family immigrated to Russia, arriving at the port in Oranienbaum on 8 August 1766. Son Georg Philipp is recorded on the 1798 Census in Dobrinka in Household No. Db45.
- 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).
- Ortsfamilienbuch Groß-Bieberau (online)
- Parish records for Langstadt - LDS Film No. 1340337.
- Parish records for Gross-Bieberau - LDS Film No. 1190548.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 235.