When the Reiners reached Virginia, either in late 1749 or early 1750, they rapidly went about establishing families. Of the three girls, Mary Sarah married George Cook, her first cousin. Mary Magdalena married Nicholas Smith. Mary Margaret married a man of whom we know next to nothing. The only reference to him is in the will of Margaret's brother which names her as Margaret Withauer (or something similar to this name).
The Reiners arrived at Philadelphia in the fall of 1749. Mary Sarah Reiner married George Cook and they were having their first child baptized in September of 1751.
Only one of the two boys married and this was Christian who is usually found in the civil records as Christopher. He married Elizabeth Fleshman. So, the Reiner surname survives in America through his descendants. Eberhard never married, and his will of 1802 left his property to his siblings. It is from this will that we know Margaret married a Withauer or Witham. By this time, she was 80 years old. Our evidence that Eberhard never married is the omission of any wife at church and the omission of a wife or children in his will.
In the record of baptisms at the German Lutheran Church (Hebron), the wife of George Cook is named as Mary Sarah, born Steiner (according to the translation of the " Register "). That Steiner was a mistaken reading for Reiner is shown by the baptisms. For the six children of George and Mary Sarah Cook, Christian Reiner is a sponsor on three occasions. Magdalena and Nicholas Smith alternated in being sponsors for the children (excepting only the infant Dorothy, when they both missed). A similar pattern was started with Philip Snider and his wife Margaret, but Philip dropped out after the first child was baptized and Margaret was a sponsor for all of the rest.
The six children of George and Mary Sarah (Reiner) Cook who reached adulthood were:
There was another child, Diana, who died when quite young. The mother, Mary Sarah Reiner, died between the birth of Lewis, in 1768, and the appearance of George Cook, with Anna Maria (Huffman) as his wife, at the baptism of their son Ambrose in 1775.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.