John Martin is the name of at least 12,000 men and boys now living in the United States,¹ and even the most cursory genealogical research shows that the name was also very common in earlier centuries.²

 Nevertheless, this site dares to focus on the ancestry and descendants of one particular John Martin, who:

• was born in Pennsylvania in 1789,
• married Sarah Stanley in Athens County, Ohio, about 1808,
• relocated to Camargo, Illinois, about 1837, and
• died at Camargo in 1846.

Along the way, he and his wife Sarah (or Sally) became the parents of nine children (four girls and five boys), many of whose descendents will be listed here. These children were:

• Isaac Martin, 1809–1881 (married Mary Irwin)
• Ambrose Martin, 1812–1900 (married Phebe May Stewart)
• Joseph Martin, 1814–1837 (married Elizabeth Sleeper)
• John Martin, Jr., 1816–1895 (married (1) Mary Ann Wheeler, (2) Lavina Plowman, and (3) Mary A. Dobs Howard)
• Louisa Martin, ???–???
• Betsy Martin, Abt. 1825– ?? (married Alfred Wright?)
• Lucinda Martin, 1828– ?? (married Moses Vanness)
• Sally Martin, Abt. 1830– ?? (married William A. Jones)
• Archelaus Stanley Martin, 1833–1902 (married Harriet Phipps)

This web site was launched in October 2005 by Peter L. Martin, a sixth-generation descendant. It began with just this home page. Then, a few months later, I added the text of a family history letter written in 1899 by John's grandson Elza Martin.  Since then, I have gradually worked on adding pages for each of John and Sarah's children.  I will be expanding the site as my time and my supply of genealogical information allow.  In the meantime, if you have any questions or can provide any information about this family, you're welcome to contact me at: the address shown in the image below.

—Pete Martin, Littleton, Colorado

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¹ Statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau show that Martin, the 16th most common surname in the U.S., is held by 0.273% of the population, and that John, the 2nd most common given name for men (after James), is held by 3.271% of American males. Thus, out of the 138,053,563 males enumerated in the 2000 census, about 377,000 would have the last name of Martin and, all other things being equal, some 12,300 of those Martin men and boys would have the first name John. The actual number is probably higher, however, as it seems likely that families having an English surname (like Martin) would use English given names (like John) more than other families. So there could be considerably more "John Martins" in the U.S. than the 12,000 indicated by this simple calculation, and worldwide, there could be double, triple, or quadruple that number.

² The book Fragments of Martin Family History, by Ivory John Martin and Robert Walter Johnson (compiled and printed 1990 by Robert Eden Martin) includes a lengthy "Note on John Martins in Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky" (p. 29-45), which describes several dozen men and boys by this name known to have resided in those three states during the latter part of the 18th century. This book is now posted on line, but its font sizes fluctuate erratically, and some of the type is very small. Therefore, you may find it easiest to read if you copy the relevant portion and paste it into a word processor as "unformatted text."