I first heard about Jacob Mertz of Menizken, Switzerland and later Alsace as a result of correspondence in 2006 with a man named Ron Mertz, whose DNA matches mine indicating that we share a common ancestor in modern history. Ron descends from Gottfried Mertz, an immigrant who came to Missouri in the late 1840's from Alsace. Ron had traveled to Alsace in search of his ancestry, met his distant cousins who still live there and learned from them his ancestry back to Jacob who came from Menziken, Switzerland to Alsace in the mid-late 1600’s.

Ron believed he descended from Jacob’s son Peter who was born August 10, 1662 in Menziken and died in 1725. He married Maria Brandli on April 8, 1687. Among their 12 children was Ron’s ancestor Hans Heinrich who was born April 4, 1697 in Menziken and died on March 3, 1763 in Preuschdorf, Alsace. (I now believe Ron does descend from Peter and Maria but it is incorrect that his Peter was my Jacob’s son.)

My known ancestor David, born about 1690, came to America in 1733 from Alsace -- from the village of Hangviller. The distance from Hangviller to Preuschdorf is about 35 miles. Moreover, it was my theory that David’s father was Peter so I came to believe it was quite possible that Ron’s ancestor Peter was in fact my ancestor Peter and therefore that I too descended from Jacob of Menziken.

Fast forward to 2013. A man named Fredy Mertz who lives today in Alsace and who descends from Martin, son of Jacob of Menziken contacted me and obviously knew a lot about the Mertz family of Alsace. Fredy and I discussed at length what I knew of David and his possible father Peter and what I knew of Ron’s ancestry and how it might tie in with Fredy’s.

But it was mainly a confusing mess until yet another man, Robert Mertz, also of France, entered the picture and told us he had found what for me has become an absolute key document proving that David’s father was indeed Peter, that Peter had two wives Barbara Zimmerman (my ancestor) and Susanna Braconnier. Fredy had already convinced me that Peter who married Barbara Zimmerman was the brother of his ancestor Martin. Our dilemma, now proved by the document found by Robert, was we seemed to have different men named Peter Mertz, both apparently the son of Jacob of Menziken.

That’s where we are today. I descend from Jacob of Menziken who came to Rosenwiller, Alsace in about 1685. I descend from his son Peter born 1662 in Menziken and his first wife Barbara. We do know yet know how to reconcile Ron’s ancestry with mine. There is no doubt Ron believes his ancestor is the same Jacob who I believe is my ancestor -- the key being that both versions of the research give Anna Fuchs as the name of Jacob’s wife. It is true that Ron’s Jacob seems to have come from Menziken to Preuschdorf with no indication of his having moved elsewhere once in Alsace whereas my Jacob was of Rosenwiller at least for most of his Alsatian life.

But clearly Ron’s ancestor Peter, son of Jacob, is not my ancestor Peter, son of Jacob. Their birth dates are different, the names of their wives are different and their date of death, though not specific for either, are different. I believe something is wrong with the genealogy as Ron came to understand it from his Alsatian cousins living there today.

For the time being, I have placed Ron’s Peter as brother to Jacob, but I have no idea if that is the case. Clearly my Jacob and Ron’s Peter are closely related (DNA proves that), we just don’t now know exactly how.

Fredy Mertz says Jacob and his family moved from Menziken, Switzerland to Alsace perhaps in the mid-1680‘s. We know Jacob was still in Menziken when his son Daniel was born in 1675 and the earliest mention of anyone of tis family in Alsace was in 1689. He settled in Rosenwiller. Fredy also found his death information, saying: “Jacob, previous inhabitant of Rosenwiller, died in the village of Cosswiller on March 23rd 1712 aged 85 years” Fredy adds: “My understanding is that when his wife passed away he went close to a person from his family because he could not stay alone. And the most probable would be that George MERTZ who signed the death document together with Nicolas Zimmermann would be another son, maybe the elder one.”

I had long had the idea that perhaps our ancestors came to Alsace from Switzerland. That idea was first planted in my mind by Annette Burgert who, in her book “Eighteenth Century Emigrants from Northern Alsace to America” tells us a little about the Alsace region where the Mertzes lived certainly by the early 1700's, if not before. This area is just west of the Rhine River, near Strasbourg, in what is now France, but back then would have been considered part of the German Empire, described as a ”loose-jointed but not ineffective constitutional edifice within which could coexist 300 large and small, secular and ecclesiastical principalities, 51 imperial cities, and nearly 2,000 imperial counts and knights, each of whom possessed the same territorial sovereignty as an elector or a duke. Germany was a working federation of these distinct sovereign entities.”

Burgert goes on to say, specifically about this region of Alsace :

◆ In the 18th century, this area was divided into small domains such as those belonging to the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg or the Counts of Nassau and it was German territory until 1793 when it was annexed to Alsace, which later became part of France.

◆ As early as 1559, these Counts granted refuge in the area to Huguenots who were expelled from French territory for religious reasons.

◆ The area was occupied by France and Lorraine from 1649-1670 and during this period the Lutheran religion was forbidden and the Catholic Church was the official church. In 1698, after the defeat of Louis XIV, the area was returned to its former jurisdictions and the Lutheran religion was once more the official religion.

◆ About this time came an influx of many Reformed (Lutheran) Swiss families to repopulate the area and they appear in large numbers in parish records [the ones studied by Burgert].

Burgert did not specifically say that John David Mertz or his forbears were of Swiss origin, but she did document that his wife, Veronica Schneider, was the daughter of Joseph of Diedendorf (Alsace), originally from Melchnau, Bern, Switzerland.

The idea that we had possible Swiss origins was reinforced when I read about the Mertz Glacier Polynya in the Antarctic named after Xavier Mertz who was Swiss. I have no idea if he is related to us -- but it documents Mertz as a Swiss name too. Xavier was from Basel -- a town one might consider to be North of Bern (canton) on the way, say, to Alsace.

So now it seems pretty well proven that my Mertz/Merz ancestors of Alsace came there from Menziken, Switzerland -- in the time period that Burgert was referring to.

It would be nice if this complete migratory route was confirmed by my DNA, which purports to tell us our ancestors’ migratory journey, but it is unfortunately not so complete.. My DNA test, done by the National Geographic Genographic DNA project. They told me that I belong to Haplogroup J2 (M172) meaning my direct male ancestors long ago came out of Africa into the Golden Crescent and from there stayed along the Mediterranean coast moving west (over many, many generations) ultimately to (what is now) Italy. Remember, we’re talking here about my direct male ancestors and theirs of 15,000-60,000 years ago. So, in the next several thousand years, they had to find their way from Italy to Alsace and it makes sense (to me at least) that the initial move may have been through the Alps and into Switzerland.

Here is a link to the very well researched family tree of Robert Mertz of Sarreguemines, Lorraine. France. I do not normally include links to other people’s trees in my database but this tree is so well documented with church and other records that I think it has great credibility.

http://gw.geneanet.org/romer?lang=en;p=jacob;n=mertz;oc=2

Robert, like Fredy, is my cousin as he descends, like Fredy, from David’s father Peter. I descend from Peter by his first wife Barbara, they both descend from Peter by his second wife Susanna.