John Martz was a neighbor of Abraham’s in the 1830 Census. From his age, it seemed likely this was a father and son living near each other. A land partition petition filed after Abraham’s death, said he had a son John then living in Indiana.

There is a record of the 1827 marriage of John Martz and Rebecca Bowman of Pickaway County. I believe they were the John and Rebecca Martz who both died in 1849 and are buried in Montgomery County, IN leaving oldest son William born about 1828. The pieces fit together neatly.

John is designated P5b1.

In 1830, John was a neighbor of his father. In 1840, the best candidate to be John, who was supposed to be in Indiana by then, was John Marts of Montgomery County, IN.

Bette Gardner tipped me off to the find-a-grave memorials for John and Rebecca Martz, buried in Montgomery County, IN. They both died in 1849.

It is the fact that his wife was Rebecca that ties everything together because there was a marriage record in Pickaway County that John Martz married Rebecca Bowman in 1827.

So I believe I have traced John from Pickaway to Montgomery County, IN using all the available clues.

John and his wife both died in 1849. They had been living in Montgomery County, IN and from the 1840 Census we know had any number of children, both boys and girls.

So the household headed by William Martz in 1850, 22 years old, living with his wife Sarah 18 and Abraham 12, Isaac 8 and Jacob 8 always seemed like it just had to be the “remnant” household of some of (?) John and Rebecca’s children. There were a couple of additional young Martzes — John with the Mullen family and Lydia with Gaskill — living in the same county who I also initially guessed were two more of John’s children.

This all was proven when Bette Gardner found that Samuel Martz was appointed guardian in January 1850 for the minor children of John: Lydia and Catherine above the age of 14 and Abraham, Jacob and Isaac all under 14. And in 1852, Samuel resigned as guardian for John and Willam Mullen was appointed in his place.

That accounted for all the children I thought must be John’s except William — who was old enough not to need a guardian — and added Catherine to the list. But why hadn’t I found her in the 1850 Census, albeit likely living with another family?

The answer is she was there, her name misspelled March. She was living with Archibald and Catherine Flaningam. Bette Gardner knew that Archibald’s wife was actually Catherine (Kashner) Flaningam — daughter of Abraham and Catherine (Martz) Kashner who was none other than the daughter of Abraham and Catherine (Harmon) Martz, parents also of Samuel and John Martz. All one big happy family.

And then I was able to find her buried in the same cemetery as her parents, the wife of John Francis.

Now knowing more about Catherine than we did Lydia, Bette went and found Lydia buried in a different Darlington, IN cemetery (the one where her uncle Samuel is buried) with her husband Robert A Craig.

John’s sons were William, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and John.

Isaac is buried in the same cemetery as his parents. It looks like he may have died in the Civil War, 21 years old. He is not designated.

I lose track of William after 1860 but he is designated and tracked at least that far.

And then Abraham, Jacob and John are designated and tracked fully.

The marriage of John Martz and Rebecca Bowman is documented in an index compiled by the Ohio Genealogical Society.