I first learned of Sarah from the fact that she is linked to her father, Philip, on find-a-grave and her maiden name gven there. But what proof was there?

First I found the death certificte of her daughter Sarah (Jones) Loy saying her mother was Sarah Mertz — at least confirming that as her madien name and then I found in someone’s Ancestry tree a wonderful fraktur that exactly give Sarah’s date of birth and saying the names of her parernts were Philip and Eizabeth (Miller) Mertz and she was born in Brunswick, Schuylkill County, PA.

It seems from their birthdays that Sarah and Catherine were twins, though the fraktur only names Sarah. It makes me wonder if there was a separate fraktur for Catherine too but no one seems to have ever found it.

I found his baptism record in Rev Hellfrich’ records and interestingly the sponsors at the baptism were Jacob and Elisabeth Merks. Biut it turns out, he too had a fraktur which said his mother was Margaret Merts (or Meets?) and whatever her name was the sponsors, Jacob and Elizabeth, for sure had the same last name,

Jacob Charles was born in Longswamp.