The AWT that covers these people say Nicholas was the son of John Mark born 1701. No further information about John was given.

This is the man people have said was Nicholas Mertz but I cannot make the dates work for any of the three men named Nicholas Mertz I am aware of. One of them was already dead and the other two, I think, too young to be this man about whom I know just enough facts to rule those others out.

He was said to be the brother-in-law of the two Schneider girls murdered by the Indians in 1763. And I found an AWT focused on various Adams County, PA families and a Nicholas Mark died there in 1823 and his wife was said to be Eve Schneider, who was in fact the sister of the murdered girls.

In addition, Nicholas patented land in 1773 originally warranted to Abraham Wotring and a second tract originally patented to John Snyder. Eve Schneider would have been a descendant of both Abraham and John so it makes sense that her husband would be able to patent these tracts.

I am more convinced than ever that Nicholas Mark, though intertwined with the Schneider and Wotring families -- both of which were intertwined with my Mertz ancestors of Alsace -- was a different man entirely than (any of the) Nicholas Mertz.

Nicholas, according to the AWT, had a daughter Eve who married Jacob Mertz, but I have no idea of what line.