Johann Albert Schäfer, son of Johann & Maria Christina Schäfer, was baptized on 9 June 1728 in the Heiliggeist Evangelical Church of Heidelberg. He married to Anna (Maria) Katharina Teychellampf, daughter of Philipp Wilhelm Teychellampf, on 23 January 1761 in the Evangelical Church of Gaugrehweiler, which is a municipality 93 kilometers northwest of Heidelberg.
They had two boys, each baptized in Gaugrehweiler: (1) Johann Christian Wilhelm, baptized on 28 December 1761; and (2) Michael Friedrich Anton, baptized on 29 October 1764.
Johann Albert and his family immigrated to Russia, departing from the port of Lübeck by the hooker Die Jungfer Dietrika with the skipper Christian Korsholm, and arriving in Oranienbaum, Russia, on 13 September 1766. The Schäfers arrived in Stephan on 24 August 1767, and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 16.
By the time of the 1798 Census, Schäfer descendants are still living in Stephan in Households No. Sp25 and Sp28. Son Nikolaus moved to Balzer in 1796 and is recorded there in Household No. Bz62 on the 1798 Census. Daughter Elisabetha moved to Grimm in 1797 and is recorded there in Household No. Gm114.
- 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 Gaugrehweiler (LDS Film Nº 193857).
- Parish records of Heidelberg (LDS Film Nº 1189244).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Nordost-Institut, 2008): 224.
- Pleve, Igor. List of Colonists to Russia in 1766 "Reports by Ivan Kulberg" (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 364.