Her baptism was recorded in the records of Lowhill Reformed Church. The sponsors were Regina Grow (her grandmother) and her second husband Peter Grow.

When she and husband John baptized son Jacob in 1802, the sponsors were her parents Jacob and Elisabetha Baehr.

She moved with her husband to Luzerne County and is buried there.

The facts of her life are nice and tidy, the way I like it. Her baptism was recorded giving her exact birth date and the names of her parents. Her marriage to John Hartman was recorded. They both were of the same place -- Lowhill Township. She and he moved later to Luzerne County and her tombstone there gives an exact birth date matching the church record from 70 years before. Nice and tidy.

His baptism was recorded in the records of Lowhill Reformed Church. Because of the specific location and that both his parents were named, we can be certain this was Johannes II baptizing son John, who I’ll call John III. Lowhill Township was in Northampton County at the time of his birth but became part of Lehigh County when it was formed in 1812.

He left Lowhill in about 1815 and moved to Union Township, Luzerne County. Now here’s where it can sometimes get tricky in genealogy -- the question is how can we be sure that the John Hartman who showed up in Luzerne County and died there was one and the same as the John Hartman baptized by his parents in Lowhill. The main answer to this is that the name of his wife, Regina, carries through.

I would also like to believe his tombstone confirms a birth date that matches the birth date of the child baptized in Lowhill. But this second proof-point is a little problematic. From the photo of his tombstone, I can only see his date of death and age at death, and I am unable to read the age. It would need to say 70 years, 4 months, 16 days to be the basis of a computation pointing to a 16 Oct 1779 birth. Does it say that?

The person who took this photo and transcribed it on find-a-grave stated his date of birth as if it came from the tombstone or at least was computed from the tombstone. But did it? Or did that person think they otherwise knew when he was born, assuming it was John from Lowhill, and so stated his birth date on that basis? In a perfect world, people would only transcribe what really is written on a stone and not attempt to add extra information not in evidence. I know they may think they are being helpful, but it creates ambiguity.

1810. John Hartman lives in Lowhill Twp, Northampton Co age 26-44 as is his wife and 7 children live with them. A neighbor is his father, John.

1820. John Hartman lives in Union Twp, Luzerne County. He is 45+ (though only 40) as is his wife and there are 9 children present including two daughters 10-15.

I found an article posted on-line on a forum for Northeastern Pennsylvania photos originally published in a Wilkes-Barre area newspaper called Suburban News. I think the article was fairly old (maybe 1900 or so?) but I don’t know the date it was published. Here is an abstract of the article:

“On 18 Sep 1727, Johann Henrich Hartman and his wife and two children landed at Philadelphia on the ship William and Sarah. In 1734, he acquired land in Maxatawny Township, (then) Philadelphia County. He died 1 Nov 1744. His wife was Joannes, called Jane. His only son, John, was born about 1728 and married Maria Eva Dreynich (Breining) who was born about 1730. They lived in Maxatawny until 1754 and then moved to Lowhill Township in what is now Lehigh County. He was prosperous owning a tavern and grist mill. He died in 1787 and Eve in 1809.

John and Eve had a son John who married Barbara, she died in 1839. He served with the Northampton Militia in the Revolutionary War. He died intestate in 1811 at which point his widow sold their property in Northampton County and moved to Union County.

John and Barbara had a son John who married Regina Baer, daughter of Jacob. Jacob was a Revolutionary War veteran. John renounced his claim to his father’s estate and soon thereafter bought a farm and moved to Union Township, Luzerne County.”

Amazingly, I would be hard pressed to argue with anything written there.

Several Internet trees list 12 children for this couple which I have no reason to argue with. And they give exact birth dates for all of them. But, so far I have only found the baptism records for two, those being: Jacob born 14 Aug 1802 and Frederick born 16 Nov 1812, both baptized at Lowhill Reformed. You’d think the others would have been baptized in the same church -- especially the ones born between Jacob and Friederich including our Rachel Elizabeth, but I have closely examined those records and they are not there -- nor at any nearby churches.

Now to be sure, there are other sources for exact birth dates. Tombstones, for instance. In fact, that is my dilemma as it relates to Elizabeth Hartman. The trees say she was born 24 Oct 1807, a date which matches exactly the birth date on the tombstone of a woman named Elizabeth, wife of George Kleckner, who I believe was one of the children of John and Regina Hartman.

• If those family trees showed that Elizabeth married George Kleckner, which I would expect them to show if that was how they came to learn her birth date -- then that would not be sufficient proof, for me anyway, to conclude that George’s wife was John and Regina’s daughter.

• On the other hand, the fact that Elizabeth, daughter of John and Regina, is not apparently recognized as the wife of George Kleckner in those trees -- adds to the credibility of my assertion that they are the same person -- assuming her birth date came from some source other than her tombstone.

I suspect strongly there is a family bible somewhere listing all the children and their birth dates -- a bible is mentioned in the DAR application of a descendant of John II who served in the Revolutionary War and I have tried to find the specifics of what may be in that bible, so far with no luck.