She was the daughter of Uzal Hopkins, a well known politician of Montour County. Columbia deed 19/92 has the heirs, including Malissa and George, of Rebecca Hopkins selling a piece of land.

Her will left everything to Mary Jane Mertz, wife of her son Lloyd Mertz.

I first heard of George in 2014, when the husband of a descendant of his contacted me to see if I could help figure out who his father was. I struck out.

There were too many clues and perhaps too many candidates.

His marriage record in a Northumberland County newspaper said he was of Northumberland County when he married Melissa Hopkins in Nov 1838. That opens the door to all those Augusta and Shamokin Township Martzes as possible candidates. But Melissa was of Columbia County so that opens the door to all those Columbia County Martzes.

We tried to list all the candidates and see who we could rule out but it still left too long a list. And from time to time, something would come up that would make me remember George and see if I then had some new clue but nothing ever seemed to be helpful.

And then in 2020, my correspondent told me that his wife had done an Ancestry DNA test and maybe that could help. He had found what he thought was a rather strong connection between his wife’s DNA and that of descendants of Daniel Martz, who he found in my database as the son of Abraham Martz (1783-1859) who died in Numidia.

So we discussed a more all encompassing approach to finding everyone his wife matched who might be a Martz descendant of some kind. The evidence seems to point to George being a descendant of Hans Peter Mertz but what was really striking was quite a number of independent connections to people descended from Ester (Martz) Bieber, daughter of Abraham of Numidia.

I believe the DNA evidence strongly suggests that:

1. George was the son of Abraham Martz (P4c). My correspondent’s wife has many, many DNA cousins who descend from Abraham’s son Daniel or his daughter Ester who married Daniel Bieber or his daughter Mary who married Wellington Maurer (or Mowrey).

2. Since George and Daniel seem to have a strong connection, I think it also confirms that Daniel too was a son of Abraham, which is what I suspected but I think this adds more evidence in support of that belief.

3. That Abraham was of the Hans Peter family. My correspondent’s wife has a sufficient number of cousins who descend from Philip Mertz (P4) for us to believe it but the fact that Abraham’s father was a different son of Hans Peter cannot be ruled out.

George is designated P4c3.

I found George in Pottsville — where I was told I would find him when I first learned about him — in 1850 and 1870 but never had found him in 1860. Then when I was reviewing Columbia County deeds to see if there was anything that would connect George to Abraham (there isn’t). I did find a deed whereby 112 acres that had belonged to Matthew McDowell were sold to George Martz in 1861 “of Scott Township”.

Sure enough, in the 1860 Census we find George and M B (obviously Malissa) in Scott Township, Columbia County and children: H age 16, A age 13, A age 10, and L M age 7. I think this is Helen and Alonzo from the 1850 Census and Arabella and Lloyd from the 1870 Census.

Curiously, in 1880, the widow Melissa was reported twice, two of her children claimed she was living with them.

George and Melissa are on find-a-grave with four children liked to them..