Daniel Martz, age 22, lives with the Mousey family in Coal Township in 1850. I don’t know for sure who he was.

The other Martzes in Coal Township then were Johannes and his son Benjamin and Daniel is a perfect age to be Benjamin’s son, so I am willing to guess that he was the son of Benjamin Martz of Coal Township and was off working on someone else’s farm.

In support of this theory, I do note that Benjamin had a son age 10-15 in 1840 who I otherwise can’t name. Daniel is designated P3a2a.

By 1860, Daniel had married Angeline and they had two daughters. Then, by 1870, Daniel disappeared but I am sure I have found his widow Angeline then married to Joseph Holshue. The same two daughters, plus Isabelle born in 1861, lived in that household, though all three reported as if their name was Holshue.

From the 1870 Census, it wasn’t totally clear if Isabelle was Daniel’s daughter or whether she really was the daughter of Angeline by Joseph Holshue. But Rebecca Schmitt, a descendant of Isabelle’s, contacted me and we concluded there was no doubt she was Daniel’s daughter. The timing — she was born just a little more than a year after the 1860 Census was taken — strongly suggest so. Plus her death certificate lists her mother as Angeline Eisenhart and her father as Martz, given name unknown. Finally, in the 1880 Census, Isabelle listed as Joseph’s step-daughter and her name given as Isabelle Martz.

We know her maiden name from the death certificates of the three daughters she had with Daniel. She married Joseph Holshue after Daniel died.