I've included a page on this family group because many Bentzes who've gotten in touch with me are part of it.
My intention is not to document this branch in detail, as that's already been done. There is an excellent book by John D. Bentz, entitled "Descendants of Martin Bentz - Dorothea Schmeller" (ISBN 0-9612438-0-5). John's email is jdbentz@prodigy.net; he's also quite active in various netnews discussion groups. His U.S. mail address is 13139 Old West Avenue, San Diego, CA 92129.
His wife Edna has also written an excellent small volume entitled "(If I Can You Can) Decipher German Records" (ISBN 0-9615420-0-4). It includes lots of critical basic information about alphabets, abbreviations, symbols, church calendars, illness names, and so forth.
When I spoke with John Bentz by telephone some years ago, he said that his branch is considered to be the "Russian Bentzes", as they came from Prussia (now part of Kaliningrad, Russia). Martin Benz was born in October of 1782, and died on May 17, 1859. He married Dorothea Schmeller; they had Ferdinand Bentz, who was born in 1815 in Jasczerek, West Prussia.
Ferdinand married Elisabeth Frank; their son Joseph Ernst Benz was born in Jasczerek in 1839. He died on June 16, 1881 in Scribner, Nebraska, where this line began in the U.S.
I'd very much like to get an online database of this family, if for no other reason than to be able to point people in the right direction.