Anyone with German settlers in Pennsylvania has done a DNA test?

Question

Hi there,

I do hope to find some WikiTree'ers that have taken a DNA test and have early German settlers in their family tree.

Reason is that I do have several indications that I share with many cousins through those German settlers, me from the German side and they obviously as descendants from these settlers. As they kept marrying within their proximity their DNA was mostly preserved and not mixed as much as normally occurs. Hence a lot survived until nowadays.

If you have a kit at GedMatch, which is mandatory for this undertaking as it allows to analyze triangulations going down to very small and tiny segments (eg on chromosome 2 from 106-126 bp), please do contact me directly either through a post on my profile or via PM.

If you haven't done so, please consider to upload your raw DNA data to GedMatch.com as it has some unique tools for analyzing your DNA and it's the only one that allows to effectively analyze from 1 cM genetic distance and 50 SNP onwards (maybe even less SNP but that's the minimum I use).

Before people declare me as being crazy for going after such small segments I do it only for identified and triangulated matches. Background is that over time our inherited ancestral segments get split up a lot. I have proven with my work so far that sometimes an intact 7 cM long segment gets split up into 4-5 smaller segments and as such is still possible to triangulate such people in a TG.

Thanks in advance!

Comments

Interesting,

we have two matches who match both our profiles.

Mine is MD9829559 and I am German. A few of my ancestors emigrated to different parts of the US.

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Comparing Kit MD9829559 (Marcus Horstmann) [MyHeritage] and Kit A876449 (Alexandra Florimonte) [Migration - F2 - A]

Chr	B37 Start Pos'n	B37 End Pos'n	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
6	44,046,143	45,787,468	3.5	257
6	107,193,215	110,950,048	4	530
6	136,228,219	137,889,729	3	221
11	111,302,619	113,866,551	3.4	330
12	17,497,890	20,336,152	3.1	416
13	21,068,591	22,480,932	3.3	219
18	9,464,119	10,197,500	3.1	216

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Hello Andreas. Since I messaged you in 2018 I used a 23 and Me kit instead of an Ancestry kit for Gedmatch and expanded my tree using DNA from 1000 to nearly 19000.

The new Gedmatch kit number is KB1416083P1.

This new kit helped me find and confirm 65 cousins to my Henry Hoch 1731-1827 on Ancestry.

I am still trying to confirm if one of two grandsons of Balthasar Hoch is my 6th GGF.  My cousins have DNA matches to both sides and I am trying to figure out the best way to resolve the issue.

I will try your techniques as mentioned above in our earlier conversation. If you'd like to try my new kit number I'd be interested in your findings.

Thanks for any help.

Bruce Hoch

brhoch2000@yahoo.com

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I have three kits on GedMatch, one for me, and for my two sisters.  My GEDMatch numer is A055209, one sister is A757550, and the other ister is M554302.

We are descended from Benedict Kepner (also Kepler) Sr., (born 8 Dec 1679 in possibly Wurtemburg) and his wife Barbara Catherine (Unknown).  They and 5 sons (possibily daughters too?) came to New Hanover Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania in about 1720.  Benedict's grandson, Benjamin Kepner (1750-1804) married Maria Susanna Strauss, the daughter of Albrecht Strsuss (immigrated to New York before 1711 and was in the Queen's War) and his wife, Martha Zerbe.  Anna Maria Margaretta Zerbe (3 Feb 1715-7 May 1787) was the daughter of Johann Martin Zerbe (baptized 17 December 1671 at Kettenberg, Nasau, Hessen) and his wife Anna Elizabetha "Maria" Jungel.  They came to Livingston Manor, Duchess County New York, and moved to Berks County, Pennsylvania before 1739.

Youc can follow my line at Kepner-132.  

Kettenbach, Nassau, Pru

Kettenbach, Nassau, Prussia)

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Knortzer-3 and Upp-28 are my 5xg grandparents.  They emigrated from Germany in the mid-1700s and settled in the York, Pa area.  My Gedmatch ID is T426982.

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You and I both match wendyjlmissouri. She is a Wampler-Kinsey match to me. Any Wampler or Kinsey/Kuntzi in your tree?

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Although we share several matches, we don't match each other (one-to-one autosomal at 3cM level).

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Hello Lewis,

you can't use 3 centiMorgan as a threshold. This will bring us back to 300 BC for a common ancestor as per Professor Itzik Pe'er.

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Hi, my name is Aubrey Teeter which was Dieter on the mid 1700's. I'm related to the Teeter's that come from Germany to North Carolina not PA. We have yet connected to Germany with that name. I also have some German on my mother's side. I'm curious what you will find.

GEDmatch M156615

Thank you

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Hi Audrey, we share a few small DNA segments (all<4cM).  Not much to go on from a genetics perspective.  I did look at our shared matches and no family surnames jumped out at me.  I looked at a couple of Gedcoms of shared matches with same result.

Answer 1

Hi Andreas,

My family settled in Wilkes Barre, PA area...I am GEDMATCH A398834, GEDCOM 120309, 23&Me ZN2782201, DNA Kit 23-3585E9.

  Names..Paternal:   .GOERINGER, Reinert, Corcoran,Feather,Sheler,Cawley,Ruane.  

 Maternal:  Landers(Landerer), Eger,Muri, Walters, Richards. Thomas, Jenkins.     Grottkau, Prussia, Baden, Germany, Wales, UK, Ireland are countries involved.

Answer 2

I have a few old German immigrant branches, chiefly the Volbrecht/Fulbrights and the Olingers, both direct lines to two different great-great grandparents. The myOrigins map on FTDNA "thinks" that I'm 50% Western/Central European.

We share 6 ~4 cM segements, the highest being 4.7.

Comments

Bingo, we have a triangulated segment with Bill Derr (M591407), Edythe Walmer (F386581), B R Bolton (F287201), Vivian Lenett Shirley (F364099) and my mum (M014747) at chromosome 2 from 130-133 bp.

So welcome to our extended family, you have a couple of new cousins! Thanks for your answer, that is further proof of that suspected German settlers relationship. The ancestral segment is small (3.9 cM) but it's part of a larger segment that is mostly cut into many smaller pieces for most of us.

Will contact you directly for next steps but that's more than I hope for when I wrote this question.

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Anytime I see BINGO as the first word in a comment to an answer I will make it the best answer - though this answer was so cool and the comment even cooler.  MAgs

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Thanks Mags and sorry for not having found time to come back to you on the translation job. Being busy in the categorization project and the rest of genealogy (in what spare time is left).

Your comment made me smile and that's worth a lot, thanks!

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Andreas,130-133bp on 2 you say. I have a 27 cM match at 121-152 on 2 but it seems she and I share more than one relative in Missouri and so I've been trying to sort that out. We definitely share a 3rd old German immigrant line though, the Wolfskehl/Wolfskills. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wolfskehl-2

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Carrie,  You noted "We share 6 ~4 cM segements, the highest being 4.7. "

It does not appear your autosomal DNA is phased.  If that is the case, then experts advise you only work with segments above 7 cM.

Sincerely,

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Peter, yes indeed. Once I got a DNA match with Gail Richard Quackenbush, descendant of my 8th great uncle, for only 9 cMs (from the endogamous New Netherlands population even), I quit looking at anything less than 15 because few people know their tree that far back anyway.

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As a general rule I agree with you however I've tried to explain this isn't necessary in this case.

Peter you seem to mean that all these matches are IBS or IBC, yet you can't have looked at every match in detail and put those now around 90 matches from 11 people on one ancestral segment in a spreadsheet like I did. If you like I can send it to for your review. 22 of these matches are above 7 cM, not counting one more at 6.9 cM.

Having phased data is a luxury that only few of us have. I'm lucky enough to have DNA tests for both of my parents.

If your theory would be correct, what happens to a 8 cM segment that gets split up exactly in two 4 cM segments when given to the next generation? It changes from IBD to IBS/IBC just because it's now smaller than 7 cM? Sorry but I can't follow that logic.

 

Making such a statement like above will mislead the less well informed to believe that everything under 7 cM (or 10 cM as others are saying) is IBS/IBC by default which isn't true.

If you want to paint your whole chromosomes you have to go down with your minimum criteria eventually. As the end point has moved further I now have another group of two cousins that were unclear so far (meaning didn't triangulate under 23andme match criteria) that actually fall onto the same ancestral segment. I hope I can convince them to upload their raw data to GedMatch to proof that they belong to the same common ancestors (both match my mum and myself, so it's not my fathers chromosome they match on).

Answer 3

I am skeptical of short-segment DNA matches, but it doesn't hurt to add my name to your list. I have German ancestry in eastern Pennsylvania in the colonial era, but I don't have a great deal of information about them (and some of what I do have isn't on Wikitree yet). Germany family names in Pennsylvania include Sultzbach in York County, and Tice (probably Theiss?), Fritz, Miller, Wingard (possibly Wenger?), possibly Himmelberger, Bechtel, Garver (Garber?), and Stoppelbein.

My gedmatch ID is listed on my Wikitree profile.

Comments

Thanks Ellen for your comment and raising the hand and thanks to all the others that have sent me a PM. I'm a bit overwhelmed with work right now but promise to take a look at your kit no over the weekend and will come back to each and anyone of you.

Hope that we will have more matches!

Thanks a lot to everyone responding

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Hi Ellen,

I've checked and the largest segment I see is 785 SNP's for 5.8cM at chr 16 for matching my mum (from 30-50 mbP). This is unfortunately crossing a centromere, an area that should always be treated a bit more carefully when it come to matching results (though another opinion is that those centromeres also have to be inherited like any other part of a chromosome).

I do have a small pileup with a lot of people with a similar length that what my mum matches with you. So that might lead back to a common ancestor far back or is what some people call IBP (by population). I've looked through your well researched family tree and didn't see anything familiar, it seems anyway that those that you identified so far came to the U.S. pretty far back in time.

If we do share a common ancestor then that would support the idea that it was back in the 1600-1750 region maybe. GedMatch is unfortunately very slow today but I will see if I can find matches with other people in that pile-up region of chr 16.

BTW, did you ever receive an invite to share on 23andme? I couldn't find you in any accepted match.

 

Forgot to write that those on chr 2 in the area that I've described in my question are all very small. The largest part is 255 SNP's and the biggest genetic distance is 3.1cM.

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Hi, Andreas. As you know, 23andMe shows only the ~1000 closest DNA matches, and it no longer shows me people I'm not already sharing with as DNA Relatives unless the match percentage is at least about 0.18% (typically about 13 cM). I have many DNA relatives, presumably because much of my ancestry is in the early colonial New England population. Accordingly, it's unlikely that you and I would have tried to share at 23andMe.

Gedmatch shows me matching you on 7.9 cM, but (as you noted) I match your mom on only 5.8 cM, indicating that the 7.9 cM match is not really an IBD segment. Interestingly, I don't find any other 23andMe or Gedmatch contacts on that same part of chromosome 16.

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Wow, I'm still at 0.10% but I have about 400 people that accepted the sharing request and I invite everyone to share.

You are right, my segment is artificially enlarged to 7.9 cM it can't be larger than my mums (unless there was a reading error on her part). I've checked also vs our phased profile for my mum and it gets even smaller:

 

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
16	82129738	82873782	3.0	337

 

So I guess our common ancestor is too far back (meaning not within the genealogical time frame). But thanks for raising the hand.

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Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
1	15,402,923	18,376,983	6.3	770

 

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
8	87,947,962	93,265,947	2.7	840

 

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
10	56,836,579	61,135,719	3.2	872

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
13	91,090,294	94,339,520	5.1	845

 

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Again a couple nice matches > 500 SNP's. Thanks for checking Summer and maybe they will turn up eventually. Have send you a PM.

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Ellen, you are positive for a short PG16 (see this), but that's probably not a surprise to you, as you have a number of Pennsylvania Germans.  PG6 and PG16 seem like spectral lines, or a haplogroup, that is characteristic of a certain population, but not big enough by themselves to prove anything.

I noticed that upon decreasing the minimum SNP count to 450, there were 4 small segments, which indicates a probability of a very distant relation.  I believe I do have one or two very distant Smith's, but no time to follow up on that just now.  (And I don't think I've added them to WikiTree yet.)

Summer, you were one of the cases where you weren't positive but several of your relatives were.  In fact, 3 of your relatives were positive for PG16, 2 of them with larger than average segments.  I have to assume therefore that you barely missed being positive, that something from your non-Binkley side broke up the PG16 segment.

Answer 4

I've got German ancestors that immigrated to Pennsylvania.  Names include Pabst (changed to Bapst and Pope), Kieffer, Frey/Fry, Muller (became Miller), Burns.  They were mostly in Berks county, Pennsylvania.  I've tested both of my parents and myself for autosomal.  Gedmatch IDs are F8468, A179614, A789447.

Comments

Darlene, this is you and I

 

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
2	134,334,310	137,524,538	2.5	747

 

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
6	44,309,712	47,059,624	4.3	710

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
12	56,398,456	64,649,337	6.4	1,650
12	108,592,640	112,697,844	3.3	728

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
13	80,683,271	84,746,118	2.2	789

 

 

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Darlene -- my wife has Eastern PA Fry's in her tree.
The latest is her 3G-Grandmother Eve Elizabeth Fry (Smith) (1787-1862).
I am new here and haven't had my Gedcom import from Ancestry approved yet.

Mark

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Darlene, you and 3 relatives were positive for PG6 (see this), probably not a surprise with multiple Pennsylvania Germans in your ancestry.

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No, not a surprise, but pretty darn neat (IMHO)!  Thanks, Rob.

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Mark, do you know the ancestor of Eve Elizabeth Fry Smith?  My Frey/Fry family immigrated in 1731 through Philadelphia.  They went to Berks and then Bucks, Pennsylvania, then went to Burke and Lincoln, North Carolina.

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Darlene, I just checked out of curiosity (i usually don't because the match is so low it just makes me crazy knowing I'll never figure it out) Anyway, I match A179614 at 15cM and my uncle matches at 9.6cM. That's the highest I think I've had just randomly taking the time to check. Haha. My surnames are Moser, Culler, Binckele of the German's from PA. They settled in Stokes/Surry Co along the Great Wagon Rd. I've spent enough time in the old cemeteries here to know most of the surnames and Fry is definitely one, but I haven't seen them cross into my tree so far. (A065385 is mine and A069612 is my uncle.)

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We have Bobst/Pabst/Pope (and about 40 more spellings) married in Kentucky to our Brecht/Bright (from Berks in PA - and from Schriesheim in Neckar River area in Germany - but left about 1726) - b

Answer 5

I'm a Kimmel descendant and I beileve my Groomer ancestors were probably originally Grömer. There's also Heishman & Zimmerman.

Comments

Any kit number that you can provide me with for comparison? You can PM me if you don't want to post it.

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Andreas, it's on my WikiTree profile. I am M142637 and my late brother is T112807

Answer 6

My family has many early PA settlers that were German. GEDMATCH: GEDMatch ID A506599

Comments

Many small matches with both my aunt and my dad (22 and 20 segments > 500 SNPs). Thanks!

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Doug, look at my kit A426089.

Looks like 25.4 cm match on Chr 10.

Chris StJohn

Answer 7

I do have German ancestry that passed through Pennsylvania.  On a quick check at GEDmatch we don’t share any segments (1.0 cM but still 700 SNP) but I do share segments with Marieta West on chromosomes 13 (1.5 cM) and 16 (3.2 cM).

There are a couple of papers by Michael R. Maglio on small segment inheritance.  In “Minimum Inherited DNA Segment Size and the Introduction of Familial Autosomal Haplotypes” (4 Mar 2015) he states in the abstract “Naturally occurring cleavage sites allow for small segments to exist at recurring chromosomal locations.  These small segments can be used as familial markers in an autosomal haplotype.”  He identified a segment on chromosome 2 that seems to triangulate across all European surnames; it is in the range of 134-138 million.  He followed this with “Autosomal DNA and the Triangulation of Small Segments: A Statistical Approach” (19 Mar 2015).  Meanwhile he was doing a study looking for small segments that identify Stephen Hopkins (Mayflower) descendants.  This is reported in “Autosomal Haplotypes and the Genetic Reconstruction of Family Trees” (15 Apr 2015).  The net result is “OriginsConnector”, a new genealogical service (for a fee) that will check for descent from a large number (1000?) of 17th century immigrants to both Virginia and New England.

Comments

Dear Fred, thank you so much for your link to Michael's papers. I got a lot of flak and criticism in the DNA mailing list for my approach and I felt like I was the only one in the world who believed that even a small triangulated match is still a triangulated match and therefore a cousin group.

Michael delivered not only the proof with his work on some famous people, he also delivered the statistical evidence to counter their main arguments against the method by showing how unlikely there is a IBC (identity by Chance - basically created by the matching algorithm).

Currently the DTC's are only focusing on the large segments as an identifier of a triangulated group (TG) which is ok but no one has looked into the evidence that Michael has also proven that each of them had on average 6 small segments from that MRCA. So yes, the DTC's trigger the first step but once you know you found a TG than you have to identify the other much smaller segments that got split up from generation to generation and have unfortunately not "survived" as a large ancestral segment.

Now if I only could find some time to go through all the ones that answered. Really sorry that I didn't manage so far but I'm trying to find the time to write a small application that helps me keep track of all the hundreds of small matches that each two kit produces with a 1cM minimum criteria (the tool should basically identify the smaller ancestral segments for me, it's taking too much time manually).

So please bear with me and thank you for your patience

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Andreas,

I am getting lots of matches with people with early colonial US ancestry, many with German ancestors so I did a check test for a bit of fun.  Only 500/3 though. (Is 50/1 a typo?).

My kit T350954 matches you with a 4.7cM match on C02.  It also matches my fathers paternal phased kit to 4.4cMs.  The area appears to be in a pile up region.

Interesting thing though is that two cousins have tested and we have a more significant triangulated match on a different chromosome.  They also appear to have overlapping segments with you on C02.  When I look at them only you, I and A380192 triangulate.  The other cousin A138020 doesn't seem to triangulate with you.

Our shared ancestors are http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Chester-272 and http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Austin-2989.  Both from Somerset, England, with ancestor surnames of unknown origin Nouth/Nuth, Vaughan.

Look forward to seeing what you make of all this.

Veronica

 

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Is the segment area on C02 133.0-137.4?  As that is where I seem to triangulate with Andreas?

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Check my kit at A426089, looking like a 603.0 cm match over 24 segments.

Chris StJohn

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Chris, thats very large.  With which kit did you compare it too?  You and I have no match - who did you mean to alert?

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Sorry. I mis-entered the kit number. Chris

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Pity, I was a bit excited for a bit!

Answer 8

I have 2 German lines that passed through Pennsylvania (Stauffer/Stover) and (Lohnes/Lonas), I am Kit A239508. 

On your triangulated group up there, I match Edyth on Chr 2 for 2.7cM; BR Bolton on chr 6;

myself and Vivian, we share 3 segments.

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
2	233,637,754	235,303,819	4.2	717

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
7	11,792,364	13,899,895	3.5	710

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
8	90,284,765	95,245,580	3.2	845

 

 

 

Comments

Chr

Start Location

End Location

Centimorgans (cM)

SNPs

21

40,198,919

42,215,115

8.7

812

1

182,591,275

191,320,777

5.7

1,455

 

All with my mum's sister. 

 

I have a TG with 3 more cousins on that chr 21 on 23andme.

 

Gedmatch shows no match between my mum and you. Her test is from 23andme as well. Hmh, can it be that there is a problem with 23andme v4 kits right now at Gedmatch??

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I don't know.  Mine was done through Ancestry, not 23 and me.

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Check my kit A426089. It looks like a 43.1 cm match.

 

Chris StJohn

Answer 9

One of my walls : http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kennard-322 Penn. Also Duseler/Dussler/Dußler from Germany to Herkimer Co., (1752) Niagra Co., NY; spread far & wide. 

Still searching Antwerp, Belgium departure to U.S / from Germany; (not sure about much of Anton/Anthony Wenzlich (SP) : http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wenzlich-2 & http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kesselring-109 also Germany.

 Am 11% East Europe & 11% Western Europe, listed on gedmatch.com kit# A275537 , lets get some...

 Hilfe, Spiele, verrückte Deutsche Up-In-Here ! :)

Comments

Any kit number that you can provide me with for comparison? You can PM me if you don't want to post it.

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kit# A275537

Answer 10

Hello,

I have done a Y-DNA  and Family Finder Test. (Although I still have no idea what to do with them now)  My Mother's Cousin, Shaffer, has done a Y-DNA as well.  That side of my family is from nothing but German Pioneers in Pennsylvania.  We even have living relatives still in Germany who have taken DNA Tests.  They would be The Straub's (also related to President Obama)

They all came from The then Lancaster, Berks, Northampton Counties and some from the Conrad Weiser group in the Hudson River Valley (Settlement by Palatines on the east side (East Camp) of the Hudson River was accomplished as a result of Governor Hunter's negotiations with Robert Livingston, who owned Livingston Manor in what is now Columbia County, New York. (This was not the town now known as Livingston Manor on the west side of the Hudson River). The ones in PA are from the 1710's and 1720's Germany. The surnames are Albright, Steffen, Pfrang, Straub, Schumacher, Hoffman, Zimmerman, Flinspach, Zimmerman, Meyer, Krum, Klee, Brecht, Lang, Heller, Schockinger, Reickher, Deihm, Detschler, Mayer, Meyer, Majer, Mjeir, Storzbach, Kreiger, Karnagel, Stahl, Gaugler, Gaukler, Steffe, Speidel, Gulde, Haug, Kauffman, Kaufmann, Rath, Roush, Zink, Reichenbach, Martin, Dreytwein, Brezing, Gorman, Weikel, Fetter.

This is what I have for my Mother's side so far.

Comments

Wow exactly what I've been looking for Schumacher Steffans and Hoffman. Albert Henry Schumacher who married a Stefan's and they travel down from Poland or Germany to Pennsylvania. I'm having a whole lot of trouble matching my DNA or my mom's DNA these lines

Answer 11

I am not sure how early you are looking for, but my husband (he's out of town or would be responding himself) has alot of family that settled in western PA in the 1800s.  His profile is Nelson-9731 and his GedMatch ID is A121738.  I did not see a match when doing a quick look, but perhaps you will find more.

Good luck!

Answer 12

Yes; I just added (today) to Wikitree notice that I took the Ancestry DNA Test thIs spring. Surnames that I have in Pennsylvania are Stahl, Dressler, Tressler, Bastress and either Gelnett or Shetterly. There are others but those are the ones I am working with right now.

Comments

Hello David,

I hope you will add more of your ancestry to WikiTree.

Answer 13

I'm your huckleberry.

Roughly a quarter of my ancestry is German, coming from both of my grandmothers and much of it from those who settled in Pennsylvania.

It may be helpful to you to know how it breaks down as my guess is you are likely looking for Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.

My paternal grandmother's family came from 3 main German lines. The most recent line (Reuter, Ost, Uphoff) immigrated to Philadelphia in the mid-19th century and were Catholic from Bundenbach and Birkenfeld region (former Duchy of Oldenburg, now RP), St. Wendel/Morbach Saarland region and Emsdetten in Württemberg.

Another line (Bender, Fridburg) immigrated to colonial Philadelphia in the early 18th century. They came from the Kraichgau region in Germany.

These two lines appear to be very diverse in their stock... intermarriage not so great as to be considered endogamous.

But then there's the Pennsylvanian Dutch line (Yon, Brown, Höh, Dickensheets, etc.). These ancestors came over in the 17th century and settled in Fredrick County, MD/Adams County, PA, Bedford, Blair and Huntingdon Counties, PA.  Many of them were German Anabaptist (Brethren) and, until the later 19th century, married within their small communities keeping the gene pool rather endogamous. They also came from a region in Germany (Landstuhl, Zweibrücken) whose population was highly endogamous (more on that below.)

My maternal grandmother's mother was 100% German and while her parents (who were first cousins) brought their family over in the late 19th century and settled in Illinois, they came from the very same villages and shared the same surnames as are common among Pennsylvania Dutch (Kettenring, Höh, Hollinger, Biehl, Zimmer, Trautmann, etc.).  They just happened to arrive in the US 150 years or so later.  But they were still incredibly, incredibly endogamous. 

So much so that I can't believe I haven't yet matched up with anyone through those lines...however my one Jewish grandparent's even more endogamous genes seem to be skewing my DNA match results.

My GEDmatch ID: T498657.  And my full GEDCOM (8412103) is also uploaded as well : )  Hope it helps!

 

Answer 14

I also have German ancestry (on both sides) who happened to settle in PA.

I'm still very much a noob when it comes to DNA and the things that you are talking about here, but my kit# is M871553.

Answer 15

Hi, maternal grandfather was Pennsylvania Dutch.  His ancestors were from the current Baden-Wurttemberg area. I do have a kit on gedmatch.com.  It is A345528

Answer 16

FWIW, I also have Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry on my maternal side. But no DNA tests. Last names: Behrens, Bomgardner, Hoerner, Ebersole, Shoop, Krepps. More German on my father's side. A line of Clemmer / Klemmer (and Dettero [Totherow]) goes to Pennsylvania.

Answer 17

My family on my Dad's side is German and Pennsylvanian.  My Dad recently took a Y-chromosome test and we have not yet received the results.  I have uploaded my GED onto Wiki if that will help.  Surnames of Derr, Bodenhamer with Derr being the likely early settler.

Answer 18

My adoptive dad was born in McKeesport, PA, and a good portion of his ancestry is German or Swiss. His ancestry includes Dreer/Dreier (from Hesse-Darmstadt, arrived in NY in 1834 & then moved to PA), Burkhardt (arrived in PA in 1754), Uhlig (from Freiberg & Bayern, arrived in US in 1860s), Lang (Sachsen, arrived in PA before 1875), Kim (Aargau, Switzerland, arrived in PA prior to 1876), Zentner (Glarus, Switzerland, arrived in PA in 1872), Ingfolder (Switzerland, arrived in PA in 1866). Other surnames are Moyers, Naegeli, Kronerin, Vogel, Wolf, Ziemert, Körb, Knerr, Nicasin, Weyer, BitterWunderlin, Baumgartner, Bitterin, and Gersbach.

His DNA kit # is A498909 on GEDmatch.

Answer 19

I have 85% West European DNA and 10% Greece/Italy. All my lines are PA Dutch (Berks, Lancaster Cos PA) except one Irish (5%), with ancestors arriving between 1709 (Tulpehocken Colony) and late 1730s. I have uploaded my Ancestry.com raw DNA file to gedmatch, and will upload my GEDCOM also.I hope this helps.

Answer 20

My 7X Great Grandfather was one of the original 13 settlers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, Paulus Kuster.  Their story is a very interesting one and easily found on the internet. I have done my DNA through AncestryDNA. I have uploaded to GEDmatch.