Johann Nikolaus Reh was born on 13 August 1713 in Höllerbach, southeast of Darmstadt. He married first on 9 July 1739 in Reichenbach to Eva Halganss. She had been born on 20 August 1717 in Elmshausen. Following her death in 1753, he remarried on 13 September 1753 in Reichenbach to Anna Margaretha Pfeiffer. She had been born on 2 May 1730 in Lautern.
The Reh family immigrated first to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein). Descendants of this family are recorded on the 1798 census living in Schilling, but being from Beideck .
- 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).