John Deer, who married Catherine, the widow of Frederick Baumgartner, had six children by her. The four daughters are basically unknowns except for the married names of two. The children of the two sons are known. In the last note, the children of #3. John (and Mary Blankenbaker) were given. The wife of the other son, Moses (#6), is unknown. They had eight children:
Moses, Sr. (#6) is usually given the birth year of 1760 and the death year of 1812.
There are a number of tantalizing references to the Hirschs in the German Lutheran Church. For example, when Daniel Diehl (Deal), and his wife Elizabeth, had their daughter, Margaret, baptized on 12 Mar 1775, the sponsors were Rudolph Crecelius and Catharina Hirsch. The chances are that Catharina was related to one of the parents, but not enough is known about them to answer the question.
Andreas Hirsch, and his wife Susannah, brought Andreas for baptism (date not given), but his birth was given as 23 Feb 1780. The mother, Susannah, was probably a Reser, but not proven. The sponsors were Martin Hirsch (probably Andrew's brother), Jacob Reser (he is part of the evidence that the mother was born a Reser), and Veronica (no last name given, but at other places there is a Veronica Hirsch).
We have not discussed the children of Martin Deer/Hirsch yet. These children are less certain than the children of John Deer, who left a will. Martin did not leave a will, and his family is reconstructed by gathering up all of the Hirschs who are not children or grandchildren of John Deer. Thus we have introduced (by naming him) Andrew, who was a son of Martin.
Martin, the immigrant, had more than one wife. It is possible to find evidence that he may have had three wives: Frances, Veronica, and Anna Maria, in that order. We know that he had at least two sons, Andrew and Martin, who are mentioned in a baptismal record, but there is no evidence for other sons. The evidence for his daughters is very weak.
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.