Four immigrant Mertzes settled in Berks County, PA by the mid-1700's. Descendants of several of those immigrants moved to Northampton, Somerset and Columbia County, PA. Descendants of my immigrant ancestor, John David Mertz who settled in Longswamp Township, moved to Northumberland County, PA and one line on to Sparta, NY and then Erie County, PA.

Here are their stories.

My ancestors, the family of John David Mertz, worshipped at Longswamp Reformed Church in Longswamp Township, Berks County, PA. I undertook a project early on in my research to go through the early records of that church and find every Mertz mentioned in the birth/baptism records, including when mentioned as a sponsor, and including even Mertz females then identified only by their married names, to identify every individual and determine who it was and where they fit in the family.

By about 1790, most of the Mertzes of Longswamp Township moved to Northumberland County -- then including Union and Snyder counties too. Genealogists interested in their Northumberland County ancestors, though, mistakenly thought they had come there from Rockland Township, Berks County, home of Mertz Church and that all were descendants of John Henry Mertz. They were totally wrong on both points. To get to the truth, I had to research and differentiate among what really were four immigrant Mertzes of Berks County.

In 2005 or so, I was contacted by Mary Lou Kueker, a researcher interested in the Mertz family of Sparta, NY and later Erie County, PA -- a family I was already familiar with.

I worked with Mary Lou for the next three or so years and found her to be an amazing researcher. She was incredibly thorough, incredibly thoughtful, could read and translate documents in old German script, and would tenaciously track down every last possible document that might be relevant to whatever we were trying to figure out.

She brought many little details to my attention that either added proof to some of my theories or caused me to re-think things and she brought one major find to my attention -- the proof that there were two different third generation men named Nicholas Mertz, cousins actually, of Longswamp Township. I enjoyed working with her immensely. The last thing she sent me was the White Paper included here and, when she sent it to me she said she had certain health issues and there might be a gap until I heard from her again. I never heard from her again.

All I ever knew about her was her name and that she lived in the Washington, DC area. After many months of not hearing from her, with some dread, I checked the Social Security Death Index and I am quite certain the Mary Lou Kueker who lived in Laurel, MD and died in 2009 was most certainly her.

I publish her white paper here as a tribute to her.

As our Mertz/Martz DNA project has progressed, we have begun to encounter known men of this family name who we know from genealogy were born in Eastern Pennsylvania before 1800 and yet, in some cases, we cannot answer the question of who was their father? Several in fact were born in Berks County and must be a son or grandson of one of the four immigrants, but which one? In this white paper, I have undertaken to set forth all that is known, factually, about the four immigrants and the next one or two generations.

Please note, all of my white papers were written at different times and this latest one may, in a very few places, appear to contradict the earlier ones. This one should be regarded as most current.