Carl/Charles Jones (German spelling Tschons) was married first to Elizabeth Geist in Longswamp Township in 1803, she died and was buried in 1810 at the Longswamp Reformed Church. He then married second Margaret (by 1811 based on the birth of their first chilld) — who by all accounts was nee Mertz — and sometime not too long after moved to Brunswick Township, Schuylkill County — all per a biography for him on find-a-grave actually posted on his first wife’s memorial.

When Margaret and Carl baptized their son Jacob Charles (who would grow up to marry a Mertz), there was a fraktur memorializing that baptsim and her name is hard to read but it could well be Merts, though Meets cannot be ruled out. And the baptism sponsors were Jacob and Elizabeth Merts (or Meets). As baptismal sponsors were often related to one or the other parent, a guess would be that Jacob was Margaret’s brother.

But who was Margaret, who were her parents? My assumption would be, that if she was Mertz, she was of the Longswamp Reformed Mertz family and not any other Berks County Mertz family since her husband’s first wife had a Longswamp connection. So who are the candidates?

Hans Peter Mertz had seven sons, five of whom moved to Northumberland County at about the time of Margaret’s birth. They can be ruled out. A woman who grew up in Northumberland County would not have come back to Longswamp to find a husband. That leaves Johannes and Abraham who did not move.

Nicholas Mertz had four sons, one of whom also moved away about the time Margaret was born. Leaving Conrad, Heinrich and Nicholas (II). So I suppose there are five candidates:

I have no evidence that the younger Nicholas survived to adulthood, I rule him out.

I’ve never seen any evidence that Heinrich had any children, he died in 1822 and an unrelated Adminstator was named. I’ve only found him in th 1790 Census, in Longswamp (where he died), and there were eight total persons in his household. So maybe he was a candidate, though I don’t put a lot of weight on the idea.

I know of no daughters for Conrad but, from Census, there may have been a couple. But he seems an unlikely candidate since he had moved to Northampton County by 1810 so perhaps there’s a geography issue with how Margaret came to meet Carl..

Johannes died in 1786 and his wife Margaret filed a petiton on behalf of his five minor children, no daughter Margaret among them.

Abraham’s children are all named in the estate file of his father-in-law, no Margaret among them. Besides, his son John George was born 22 Jan 1786 which would rule out a daughter Margaret born 1 Apr 1786. Still, it’s interesting that several AWT say Margaret was born in Hereford Township, and that’s where we find Abraham in 1790 and 1800 and then he’s back in Longswamp by 1810.

Here’s something else I know about Margaret. Her son, Jacob Jones married Sarah Mertz and she was a daughter of Philip Mertz who was the son of the aformentioned Johannes. I also know that Philip moved to Brunswick Township, Schuykill County by 1820 roughly (perhaps exactly?) at the same time that Carl and Margaret Jones moved there.

So, of all the candidates, I think Johanes is the best one — except: she was not named in his widow’s petiiton for guardianship of his children filed 30 Sep 1786 and there also was no son Jacob to grow up to be the baptism sponsor. If she was Johannes’ daughter, this means her son Jacob married his first cousin Sarah — but such marriages between first cousins did happen back then. Besides, you’d think if her son did marry a Mertz, she was lkely related to his mother in some way, that’s how he came to know her.

For now, I have placed Margaret as a daughter of Johannes just as a way to keep her around in my database.

He name is given as Margaret Tschons on her find-a-grave memorial.