Burgert documents her birth in Alsace from church records

We know from Burgert's research that a daughter Johanetta was born 17 Oct 1728 to Jacob Giradin and Maria Francisca Wiedersheim. The wife died and then the father came to America on the ship Two Brothers in 1748 and appears in the records of Delong's (Bowers) Church. None of this proves she was Peter's wife, just that she was in about the right place at about the right time and came from the homeland.

There is very little real basis for the belief that the wife of Peter Mertz was named Johanetta Sheridan (often spelled Giradin). There was such a woman who immigrated to America in 1748 and settled near Longswamp Township. Her family came from the same area of Alsace from whence came the John David Mertz family fifteen years earlier. Her name is found in any number of Internet Family Trees and in the “Descendants of Joseph Schneider” manuscript as the named wife of Peter Mertz. However many of those sources show their marriage as being about 1745 or before, which cannot be true as she was still in Alsace. I have found no document of any kind providing any evidence that Peter's wife was Johanetta.

If she was his second wife, she pre-deceased him.