Of all the children of John Philip and Catharina, the one of most interest to me is their son Daniel. Daniel was the ancestor of an email friend of mine named Louis Fackler and Louis had traced his ancestry to Isaac Martz who settled in Northumberland County by 1860. He had determined that Isaac was born in Dauphin County and was the son of Daniel Martz who appeared in Dauphin County by about 1812. Louis had determined that Daniel had married Maria Stoudt in 1806 in Maxatawny Township, Berks County and he believed, based on Daniel’s tombstone, that Daniel had been born 15 Mar 1779.

The question of course was -- who was Daniel’s father? There was a Daniel Mertz baptized at Longswamp said to have been born 9 Nov 1779, son of Peter Jr. Anyone that Louis had discussed his ancestry with immediately concluded that was his guy -- the only Daniel Mertz for whom there was a baptism record in Berks County in the right time period. So what if there was that little birth date discrepancy, it was only a matter of a few months? End of discussion.

Then Louis found me. He was intrigued by my story of the two Philips, that for only one of them was there an actual baptism record. I told him and showed him evidence that Peter Jr. had come to Northumberland County by 1790, obviously bringing his 11 year old son Daniel with him and that Daniel, in fact, was listed in the Northumberland County Census in 1810 and 1820. Louis and I agreed it made no sense for Daniel to have gone back to Berks County to marry and how could he be living in both Northumberland and Dauphin County at the same time?

I encouraged Louis to come up with a different theory as to who his Daniel was and to pursue that theory until he became convinced it was right or else proved it wrong. Louis did exactly that. His initial theory was that Daniel's Maxatawny Township marriage pointed to John Philip as his father since he lived there in the 1790-1810 Census. He noted that Philip had an extra son in early Census records -- one more than the number of known sons he had baptized. And then after several years of further searching, he finally found the tax records for Maxatawny for 1810 and it was noted in those records that Daniel had paid the taxes for both himself and Philip. Case closed. Daniel is designated H1d.

Louis Fackler wrote a book The Ancestral History of Forrest Louis Fackler in which he documents how he was able to conclude that Philip and Catharina had a son Daniel whose baptism went unrecorded but who existed nonetheless.

Daniel was actually reported in Maxatawny Township in the 1810 Census, indexed as Danl Mary — so he was hard to recognize. Then in 1820 to 1850, he was in Dauphin County.

Amazingly enough there was another Daniel Martz whose wife also was Maria Stout — two entirely different people. The other one was of the Columbia County line and both Daniel and Mary Stout of Columbia County were a generation younger than Daniel and Maria Stoudt of Dauphin County.

Daniel is on find-a-grave. There is a photo of his tombstone there and I think the date of death is pretty clear and I agree with both find-a-grave and Louis Fackler that Daniel died 25 Apr 1851. The tombstone does not give a date of birth but does give an age at death.

Louis must have read the age as saying 72 years, 1 month and 10 days — which is why he told me he thought Daniel was born 15 Mar 1779. His birth date is given on find-a-grave as 15 Dec 1777 (as of 2018, I think it was different previously) — meaning it is being read as saying 73 years, 4 months and 10 days. I believe I can see that it does seem to say 4 months, not 1 month — but I think it says 72 years not 73 — so my interpretation would be born 15 Dec 1778. Take your pick. He’s Louis’ ancestor, I have gone for now with him.