In the records of St. Michael's & Zion Lutheran Church in Philadelphia the marriage of Johannes Ehrhard and Maria Louisa Heydelbach was recorded. They married “Dom iv p Trinit” which I think means either 4 days or 4 Sundays past Trinity. I haven't yet nailed down when Trinity Sunday was in 1745 but it seems to fall in late May to mid June typically. So, for now, they married abt Jun 1745.

There was a Philip Erhard who died in Philadelphia in 1739 but his will mentioned children Jacob, Philip, David, Hannah and Elizabeth. It’s possible that he just didn’t mention son John, but that seems unlikely. So even though Philip was the only one in the right place with the right name at the right time, as of now, I have no basis to believe he was John’s father. I don’t have a clue who he was.

IMMIGRANT. A Johannes Erhardt arrived Philadelphia on 12 Oct 1741 on the ship Friendship. He accompanied (possibly) or was accompanied (possibly) by William Hearhart. I have no way of knowing if this was our John but I strongly suspect it was. The pattern that a young single man came to America and married three or four years later was quite typical -- so this may well may have been our John. I wish I knew for sure.

I have studied the records of New Hanover Lutheran and I think I can infer a lot by studying who the sponsors were at various baptisms -- they were typically family. Here are the relevant ones:

Johann Jorg Erhart b.26 Jul 1749 bp.13 Aug 1749 s/o Johannes and Maria Louisa.

Elisabeth Jorger b.1770 d/o Michael and Margaretha sponsor Barbara Ehrhard. [I believe this is the Barbara Ehrhard who then married Adam Wartmann April 1771. An AWT I found gives an exact dob for her (probably tombstone I would guess) of 6 Oct 1747.]

Eva and Heinrich Jeorger (twins, Henry is my ancestor) b.22 Aug 1775 and bp.28 Sep 1775 sponsor Louisa Ehrhard. (I would bet John had died.)

Elizabeth Ehrhard b.30 May 1776 bp.21 Jul 1776 d/o George and Catharina sponsors Johannes Ehrhard and Eva Berninger. [An AWT says Johannes and Eva married 17 Dec 1776.] I believe George and Johannes were brothers.

George Ehrhart b.12 Jun 1782 bp.14 Jul 1782 s/o Georg and wife Catharina sponsors Michael Joerger and wife Margaretha. [I believe Margaretha was George's sister, which now means we have drawn together Margaretha, Barbara, George and Johannes as siblings -- all children of Johannes and Louisa.]

Joh George Ehrhard b.11 Feb 1783 bp.9 Mar 1783 s/o Joh. and Eva sponsors Joh. George Ehrhard and wife Catharina. [John and George, brothers]

Anna Margaretha Erhardt b.15 Dec 1778 bp.11 Apr 1779 d/o John and Eva sponsors Michael Jorger and Margaretha. [John and Margaretha, brother and sister]

When I first learned that John Ehrhart was the name of Anna Margaretha Joerger’s father, I realized that I wasn’t going to get too far trying a broad search on his name. Especially considering alternate possible spellings, his name was just not unique -- so even if I could find his name in some old record, I wouldn’t have known enough about him to have any way to know if it was my ancestor of that name.

The breakthrough came when I focused my research geographically and broadened it to include anyone whose name began “ehrh” or “erh”. The geography I chose was very narrow actually, just the records of New Hanover Lutheran Church -- the church where Michael Joerger and Anna Margaretha Ehrhart married and baptized quite a number of children and where, at least she, was buried.

I undertook in those records a very parallel analysis to what I had done regarding the Mertz family of Longswamp Reformed Church. I started with the Ehrhart name and examined every baptism at New Hanover Lutheran where someone of that name was either a parent or sponsor, including, as I got into it, the married names of females whose maiden name was Ehrhart. This analysis allowed me to draw a similar conclusion as I had for Longswamp. It was just one family of that name in that church -- they were all related and the relationships became clear.

Analysis of just those records revealed a close relationship between Anna Margaretha and what I have come to conclude were her siblings: Barbara, John George and Johannes. They each, almost always, had one of their siblings stand as sponsor when they baptized their children in the 1770’s and 1780’s. Moreover, John George, Anna Margaretha’s brother, had been born in 1749 to John and Maria Louisa Ehrhart -- and based on that record I now was sure I knew the name of John’s wife.

Then I set out to learn more about each of Anna Margaretha’s siblings. And as much as I always say how little regard I have for other people’s Internet Family Trees, they still sometimes make a good starting place for leads to pursue. My motto is: don’t trust anything, but seek to verify what seems possible.

I quickly found the tree of Linda Claire (Ehrhart) Abel who has compiled an exhaustive listing of every citation involving anyone of the Erhardt name in any and all early records, with a wide geographic scope, and she had found the marriage of John Ehrhart and Maria Louisa Heydelbach in Philadelphia in 1745. Now the name Maria Louisa is, in fact, sort of unique and it was exactly how she was listed both in her marriage record as well as the baptism of her son John George. Moreover, her oldest child that I knew of was my ancestor Anna Margaretha born in 1746, so even the timing worked. I had found Anna Margaretha’s mother.

Interestingly, when Michael and Anna Margaretha Joerger baptized our ancestor Henry (and his twin sister Eva), the sole sponsor was Louisa Ehrhart. This was in 1775 and I suspect means that John Ehrhart had died by then or he would have been a sponsor too.

I believe from the records of New Hanover Lutheran that we can conclude that among the children of John and Louisa were: Anna Margaretha, John George, Barbara and Johannes.

Someone has added John and his wife to find-a-grave as Burial Unknown listings. They cite a 1720 German baptism record to backup the stated birth date of 11 Aug 1720 — which I certainly think is in the right ballpark. That record was from the Staudernheim Church in Kreutznach, Germany and gave his parents names as Johann Phillip Ehrhard and Dorothea Jung. It is not stated how it could possibly known that that German baptism was the same name as the one who we know from American records. Maybe he was just someone else with the same name.

The record for his wife is even more questionable. It cites a birth in Albisheim, Donnerbergkreis, Germany on 9 Jan 1730. No parents names are given. If it really was this Maria Louisa born in 1730, then she was 15 when she married.