Johann Christoph Reuter, son of Johann Nicolaus Reuter & Susanna Elisabetha Engelmann, was born on 10 February 1740 and baptized on 11 February 1740 in the Evangelical Church of Gemünden, a village between Kirchberg and Simmertal.
On 5 May 1760, he married to Maria Salome Illgas, daughter of Johann Nicolaus & Maria Elisabetha Illgas, who had been born on 30 January 1740, and baptized on 4 February 1740 in Gemünden. They had two children, each also baptized in the Evangelical Church of Gemünden: (1) Maria Susanna, on 22 November 1760; and (2) Johann Nicolaus, on 24 August 1763.
Johann Christoph Reuter, his family, and his brother Christian Reuter (who had been baptized in Gemünden on 30 March 1742) emigrated to Russia, departing from Lübeck with the skipper Johann Grapp. They arrived at the port of Oranienbaum on 13 September 1766.
They arrived in the colony of Kautz on 21 August 1767 where they are recorded on the 1767 Census in Households No. 21 and 22.
On the 1798 Census, Johann Christoph and his descendants are recorded in Kautz in Households No. Kz05 & Kz06. Brother Christian and his descendants are recorded in Households No. Kz10, Kz11, and Kz12.
- 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).
- Parish records of Gemünden (LDS Film No. 493005).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 338.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 374.