Christian Meyer (abt. 1662 - abt. 1730)

Born about 1662 in Schwyz, Switzerland [uncertain]

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1730 at about age 68 in York, Pennsylvania [uncertain]

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Biography

This "Christian" Meyer is one for whom we have very little actual documentation, but lots of family trees are found with no sources and/or with older versions of research.

Birth : In 1998, Best ^[1] tentatively named the father of Johannes Meyer and Christian Meyer as Christian and suggested that he may have been one of the married children of Hans Meyer and Anna Baumann, noted but not named on the 1685 Anabaptist census.^[2] A transcription of the entry from the 1685 census of Rudelsheim gives : Hans Mayer, Hausfrau Anna Baumannin, 9 kinder, 2 sind in der Ehe, 7 hat er noch bei sich.^[3] In order to accommodate "Christian" in this family structure, Best suggests he was born c.1662, and by 1685 was married with two children of his own : Hans (b. ca. 1685), and Christian (b. Aug. 15, 1690).

In 1723, he was living in Ibersheim, when he presented a Bible to his son, Christian who emigrated c.1727 to Pennsylvania.^[4]

Death : No evidence is located to confirm that he died in 1730, or that he died in Pennsylvania. Evidence is sought to confirm this, and any details of emigration and arrival in Pennsylvania prior to 1730. Neither Best^[1] nor Davis^[2] is certain of his name and neither speculates on a death date or immigration status. Lancaster Pennsylvania Mennonite Vital Records does not have an entry for him at all. It is possible that he died in Ibersheimhof in 1723, or shortly thereafter, around the time that he presented the family Bible to his son, Christian.

Perhaps the extent of solid documentation is that his two sons are linked by comments in the Metzler Bible, and that his son Christian "of Ibersheim" was given the bible by his unnamed father before immigrating to Pennsylvania.

Notes

Many family trees gives Christian's birth place as Schwyz, Switzerland, and identify his spouse as Christina Zwahlen (1660–1709), but no evidence has been located to confirm either of these claims. His birthdate is also sometimes given in unsourced trees as 1680, but this can not be correct if he is the father of children born in 1684 and 1690. If Christian was born in Schwyz, then we should be able to find a record there of his father Johannes, who was apparently born in Stallikon and moved later to Rudelsheim, Germany (according to Davis and Best).

Some unsourced internet trees claim he died October 02, 1729 in York, Pennsylvania and married Christina Zwahlen. The only potential source I can find for Christina as his wife comes from a 19 Apr 1751 baptism record for Ursula, daughter of Christian Mayer and Christina Zwahlen^[5]. A simple comparison of Christian's birth and death dates with Ursula's baptism date indicates the unlikeliness of this record being relevant to this Christian Meyer (abt.1662-abt.1730).

Baschi Meyer Project

If Christian is in your family tree, please consider joining the The Baschi Meyer Project: Descendants, Documentation, and DNA.

Research Goals

• Any additional documentation linking this Christian Meyer to his parents and/or children.
• Y-DNA tests (see below).

DNA

• Given the challenging state of documentation from earlier generations, the Baschi Meyer Project is looking for male-line descendants willing to participate in Y-DNA testing to help figure out who is descended from whom.
• A Y-DNA test from a descendant of one of Christian's sons will help determine his connection to other descendants.

Y-DNA evidence overturns published genealogies

A recent y-DNA study of Swiss Anabaptist Meyer families^[6] found that current published genealogies^[7][8] for the family and descendants of Baschi Meyer cannot possibly be correct. These genealogies include much speculation regarding the period between the last known census records of the family in Stallikon (1640), and positive documentation of Anabaptist immigrants in the New World several generations later. The y-DNA clearly shows that the assumptions about family connections are in error, and that there are at least three completely unrelated Meyer families who have been incorrectly linked together. Since there is currently no evidence to indicate which, if any, of these families was actually descended from Baschi, the generational relationships between Baschi’s children and grandchildren must be considered speculative, and are therefore set to “uncertain” in the Wikitree profiles. Solid primary sources are needed before removing the “uncertain” label. (Note that the profiles for Baschi’s children are not marked uncertain. They are clearly identified as Baschi’s children in the Stallikon censuses, but all information about them as adults is speculation, as is the connection between them and the New World immigrants commonly thought to be their children.)

Please see Baschi Meyer Project YDNA Lines for more details regarding the haplogroup lineages. Additional y-DNA tests are sought for descendants of Henrich Meyer (abt.1684-abt.1769) and Jacob Meyer (abt.1684-abt.1747) whose haplogroups are presently unknown. Also, Big Y tests from Family Tree DNA will help clarify how the immigrants who shared a haplogroup were related: were they brothers, cousins, etc.?

Jane Evans Best ID Chart (Disproved)

Best's 1998 IDs for Baschi and the first 2 generations of his descendants. They are included here because they are a familiar reference, but also included are the y-DNA haplogroups which disprove Best's published structure for this family. The y-DNA haplogroups are I1, R1a, J2, or "unknown" (no known y-DNA test for this lineage, or else mutually exclusive test results which claim the same ancestry). More detail about how how y-DNA testing has spotlighted more accurate family groupings among Swiss Anabaptist Meyer families can be seen at Baschi Meyer Project YDNA Lines.

MC - Baschi Meyer (1592-abt.1640) - Unknown

MC1 - Hans Meyer (abt.1621-aft.1693) - Unknown

MC11 - Christian Meyer (abt.1662-abt.1730) - I1

MC12 - Unknown (b. ca. 1655) - Unknown

MC13 - Hans Meyer (1665-1722) - R1a

MC14 - Unknown (?dau, b. ca. 1668) - n/a

MC15 - Unknown (b. ca. 1671) - Unknown

MC16 - Unknown (b. ca. 1675) - Unknown

MC17 - Unknown (b. ca. 1677) - Unknown

MC18 - Rudolph Meyer (1680-abt.1767) - I1

MC19 - Henrich Meyer (abt.1684-abt.1769) (For reference here, Best doesn't include him.) - Unknown

MC2 - Anna Meyer (1631-) - n/a

MC3 - Samuel Meyer (1634-1700) - Unknown

MC4 - Jacob Mueller Meyer (1636-aft.1685) - Unknown

MC41 - Ulrich Meyer (abt.1668-bef.1741) - R1a

MC42 - Christian Meyer (abt.1676-abt.1751) - R1a

MC43 - Hans Meyer (abt.1680-abt.1748) - J2

MC44 - Jacob Meyer (abt.1684-abt.1747) - Unknown

MC5 - Casper Meyer (1639-1700) - Unknown

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Best, Jane Evans (1998). Meyer Families Update, Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, April 1998.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Davis, Richard Warren (1995) Emigrants, Refugees and Prisoners Vol. 2 p. 291
3. ↑ Adams, Dorothy. Myers History: Some Descendants of Hans Meier of Pequea, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, D.M.K. Adams, 1987.
4. ↑ Metzler, C. E. "The Bishop Metzler Bible," Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, Vol. 11, 1911. HathiTrust.
5. ↑ Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985. Viewed at https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1190270-00254.
6. ↑ Meyers, G. & Myers, E. (2022). A y-DNA Study of Anabaptist Meyer Families in Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania. Mennonite Family History 41(3) 128-135.
7. ↑ Best, Jane Evans. "Meyer Families Update", Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, April 1998
8. ↑ Davis, Richard Warren (1995) Emigrants, Refugees and Prisoners Vol. 2

See also :

• Best, Jane Evans. Author states in later works that they "supersede all my previous accounts of this family."
  • "Swiss Emigrants from Albis, Part I: Stallikon", Mennonite Family History 8, Jan. 1989.
  • "Anabaptist Families from Canton Zurich to Lancaster County, 1633 to 1729: A Tour", Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, Oct. 1994.
  • "The Groff Book, Vol. 2, A Continuing Saga", Groff History Associates, 1997.

Acknowledgments

WikiTree profile Meyer-2254 created through merge of miscellaneous profiles created by Kim Myers, Edward Nelson, and Margaret Moyer. See the Changes page for the details of edits.