Only one of the two surviving Reiner sons married, namely Christian. Anyone who has the surname Reiner, or its variants in spelling, would also be a descendant of Christian's wife who was Elizabeth Fleshman. She was the daughter of Peter Fleshman (Sr.) and his wife. Peter was the son of Cyriacus Fleshman and Anna Barbara Schön. (Recently, there were comments about the number of people and/or families who were descended from Anna Barbara. We can include essentially all of the surname Reiner in this group.)
The daughter, Mary Magdalena Reiner, married Nicholas Smith. Nicholas was not yet born when his parents left Gemmingen in 1717. Magdalena was born in 1720, and Nicholas was probably of a similar age. Since the Reiners came to America in 1749, probably both Nicholas and Magdalena were about thirty years of age when they married. That they did marry is borne out by the sponsorships at the German Lutheran Church. They were sponsors for George and Mary Sarah (Reiner) Cook in 1751, 1753, 1756, 1758, and 1768. The two wives were sisters.
Nicholas and Magdalena were communicants in 1775 and 1776. Nicholas died in 1797 and his will left his property to his sons, John, Nicholas, Michael, and Godfrey. In addition to these four sons, there may have been daughters. Tentatively, I have entered Barbara as a daughter of Nicholas and Magdalena.
Though it is a digression from the main theme of the note, it is noteworthy that Matthew Smith, the immigrant, had a joint land grant with Christopher Barlow. In the 1787 tax list, Michael Barlow was in the household of Nicholas Smith, Sr. There may be complications in the Smith ancestry that we do not understand.
Very little is known about Mary Margaret Reiner except that her brother's will (written 1803) refers to her as a "Withauer" or "Witham." This brother was Eberhard, who never married. He left property to Margaret Witham (50 acres), and to his nephew Peter Witham (215 acres). In 1789, Peter Witham was a second tithable in the family of Eberhard. Peter Witham and his wife, May, deeded away, on 28 Aug 1806, the land that his uncle left him.
Reiners are to be found in the church records of Schwaigern, back to about 1600. Zimmerman and Cerny in the Before Germanna booklets have more information on this early history.
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.