Jacob Meyer Sr. (1636)

Born 1636 in Stallikon, Zürich, Switzerland

Ancestors

Descendants

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Biography

Best lists Jacob Meyer as the 4th child of Baschi and Ottila. He appears in Baschi's household in Stallikon in the 1637 census (aged 1) and again in 1840 (aged 4).^[1]

Best also tentatively identifies Jacob in another census in 1685 living in Gundersheim, Germany with 4 sons.^[1]

In his hypothetical 1709 "census", Davis locates Jacob Meyer (age 73) in Gundersheim, Germany, along with his son, Jacob Meyer (age 25).^[2] However, no such census existed, and there is no evidence to confirm that Jacob was either alive or dead or in Gundersheim in 1709.

It is assumed that all of these records are for the same person, and that Jacob was one of several Anabaptists who, along with other members of his extended family, fled Switzerland in the mid-1600s to escape religious persecution and settled in Germany. Further research is needed to confirm.

Research Notes

Jacob is sometimes identified in online trees as the son of Hans Jacob Meyer and Margrethe Kundig of Pfäffikon. This arises from Best's earlier work,^[3] in which she had identified Jacob as the son of this couple. However, on the basis of his apparent association with the families who are believed to have originated in Stallikon, Best revised her theories. In her 1998 Meyer Families Update,^[1] which she asserts supersedes all previous publications, she places him instead as a son of Baschi.

Notes from a merged profile identify two possible baptisms for Hanss Jacob Meyer : (i) on 27 Apr 1658 at Evangelisch, Sitterdorf, Thurgau, Switzerland, son of Martin Meyer and Maria Roest, and (ii) on 28 Nov 1658 at Evangelisch, Alterswilen, Thurgau, Switzerland, son of Marti Meyer and Maria Brunnenmeister.^[4] There is no evidence to support identifying either of these as the correct baptism record, as neither the names, dates, geography, or religion match what is known of Jacob's origins.

An earlier version of the profile included the middle name Mueller. There is no evidence that Jacob ever used this as a middle name.

These earlier genealogies have also given the name of Jacob's wife as Margaret, but there is no evidence and is most likely a conflation of Margaretha, wife of Jacob Meyer.

Best's account of this family conflicts with Fretz.^[5] Specifically, Fretz (p.333), writing about Christian and Hans, whom Best identifies as sons of Jacob, gives that : It is said three brothers came over - two settled in Montgomery county, Pa., and the other went to one of the Carolinas (emphasis added).

Y-DNA evidence overturns published genealogies

A recent y-DNA study of Swiss Anabaptist Meyer families^[6] found that current published genealogies^[7][2] 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

Baschi Meyer Project

• If Jacob is in your family tree, please consider joining the The Baschi Meyer Project: Descendants, Documentation, and DNA.
• Given the challenging state of documentation from earlier generations, the Baschi Meyer Project is looking for male-line Meyer 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 Jacob's sons will help determine his connection to other descendants.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} 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. 29
3. ↑ Best, Jane Evans (1992) “Martin Kendig’s Swiss Relatives”, Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, January 1992
4. ↑ Switzerland, Select Baptisms, 1491-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
5. ↑ Fretz, Abraham James. "A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of Christian and Hans Meyer and Other Pioneers: Together with Historical and Biographical Sketches, Illustrated with Eighty-seven Portraits and Other Illustrations". Harleysville, Pennsylvania: News Printing House, 1896. (Available online at Google Books.)
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

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.
• http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/person/g5286.htm
• https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-40000-154868041/hans-jacob-meyer-sr-in-geni-world-family-tree?s=323308191

Acknowlegements

• Misc. WikiTree profiles created by Neil Thomsen, Matthew Stidham, Michael Goldman