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

+58 votes
8.3k views
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!
WikiTree profile: Andreas West
in The Tree House by Andreas West G2G6 Mach 7 (74.8k points)
retagged by Keith Hathaway
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.

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
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

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)

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.
You and I both match wendyjlmissouri. She is a Wampler-Kinsey match to me. Any Wampler or Kinsey/Kuntzi in your tree?
Although we share several matches, we don't match each other (one-to-one autosomal at 3cM level).
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.

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

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.

103 Answers

+5 votes

I have done some work on GEDMATCH with some distant cousins who descend from PA Anabaptists.  I created a table of some matches at 5cM or 7cM, whichever was the default minicum segment when I ran the match.

I am including a copy of the table which will give you names and Kit Numbers.  I have a much longer document that includes the pathes of descent for each match that I found on Ancestry; please send me your email address so I can send you a copy.

Segment Details:

 

Kit1 Kit2 Chr Build 36 cM    

Kit Nbr. Name Kit Nbr. Name From To    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A804609 John Ellithorp 1 120866130 151542601 5.1    

M925223 David High A804609 John Ellithorp 2 2519782 5553895 7.6    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders F248103 John Thomas Bullock 4 167935138 173095187 5.5    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders F248103 John Thomas Bullock 6 44354744 55427444 10.4    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A528839 Bonnie Schulties 8 9304661 23172376 24.0    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders F248103 John Thomas Bullock 8 19506767 25607745 10.2    

A862308 Dina Helock A804609 John Ellithorp 8 136038814 139171972 5.6    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A528839 Bonnie Schulties 8 3778770 8859047 11.7    

A528839 Bonnie Schulties F248103 John Thomas Bullock 8 19537120 23216100 7.6    

A862308 Dina Helock M925223 David High 15 30060958 59170211 37.9    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A804609 John Ellithorp 15 33108035 57928789 27.5    

A862308 Dina Helock A804609 John Ellithorp 15 33126261 59475461 30.0    

A862308 Dina Helock A804609 John Ellithorp 15 59486467 64933957 7.0    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders M925223 David High 15 30878573 57936888 34.2    

M925223 David High A804609 John Ellithorp 15 33130741 59203923 29.5    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A862308 Dina Helock 15 27497384 57930371 39.4    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A862308 Dina Helock 23 50244169 68305672 7.1    

A007556 *Pat D Saunders A528839 Bonnie Schulties 23 126885498 133945220 5.9  

by Pat D Saunders G2G6 (7.8k points)
+5 votes

I just uploaded my stuff to GedMatch.com. My Mother's side has a lot of German ancestors who have settled in PA including Eisenhauer, Hauser, Manbeck, Hoy, Ziegler, Katterman, Zeller, Haas, Strauss, Reinhard, and more. 

by Living Pieters G2G1 (1.7k points)
+5 votes
JEAN SCHUMACHER  AND/OR MYSELF (MICHELLE LYONS).  ALBERT HENRY SCHUMACHER WAS A PENNSYLVANIAL DUTCH GERMAN
by
+5 votes
Gedmatch 493664

Surnames: Bickel, Hufaker, Poffenbarger
by Craig Harvey G2G Crew (970 points)
+5 votes
Howdy the hammers were in Germantown Pa. Have gedmatch profile.
by Ralph Hammer G2G Crew (350 points)
+6 votes

Pat Saunders' German Ancestry

A researcher on www.wikitree.com posted a question about the DNA of Germans who settled in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  The IDs in parenthesies are for the profiles of individuals on www.wikitree.com.

Paula Hartmann (Hartmann-428) was the mother of Pat Saunders (Saunders-3398) and Sandra Collins (Saunders-3482).  Paula was born near Luebeck in northern Germany.  Paula's mother's mother (Glanart-1) was born in the Duchy of Luebeck.  Paula's father (Hartmann-4429) was born in Magdeburg which is closer to Berlin.  Three of Paula's grandparents were orphans.

Bill Saunders (Saunders-3399) was the father of Pat Saunders and Sandra Collins.  Bill's father was Freas Brown Saunders (Saunders-3400).  Steven Bishop (Saunders-4381) is also the grandson of Freas Saunders.  Freas' father was William Saunders (Saunders-3401).  Kelly O'Leary (Holland-8252) and David Kibbe (Kibbee-68) also descend from the William Saunders who is the great grandfather of Pat, Sandra, and Steven.

Sarah Owen(s) (Owens-3205) was the mother of William Saunders.  Sarah's mother was Catherine Stem (Stem-3).  I have family papers that document my descent from Catherine Stem and Ismael Owen.  Catherine appears to descend from a group of German speakers who arrived in Germantown, Pennsylvania in the 1680s and 1700s.

My current theory is that Catherine Stem is the daughter of Frederick Stem (Stem-52) and Hannah Zimmerman (Zimmerman-469).  Frederick Stem is the son of Johann Konrad Stamm (Stamm-68) and Maria Catherine (Unknown-382181); this family settled in first Germantown in 1730 and then in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Hannah Zimmerman is the daughter of Jacob Zimmerman (Zimmerman-459) and Catherine Earnhardt (Earnhardt-131).  That Jacob Zimmerman is the son of Jacob Christopher Zimmerman (Zimmerman-460) and Sibella VanFossen (VanFossen-1).  J.C. was born in Wurttemberg, Germany.  Sibella was born in Holland.  They married in Eastern Pennsylvania.

My previous theory was that Catherine Stem was the daughter of Baltzer Stem (Stem-50) and Else Custer (Custer-393).  This would make me the descendant of Johann Konrad Stamm and Maria Catherine, Peter Custer and Anna Godshalk, Hermanus Kuster and Isabella Conrad, Jacob Godtschalk and Aeltien Hermans, Paulus Kuster and Gertrud Doors, Peter Conrad and Gertrude Connerts, Thonis Gottschalk and Legntgen Henrichs, and Davits Hermans and Trientien Symons.  

My problem in deciding which Stem is Catherine's father is that I have matches on ancestry that seem to required that I descend from both Stems.  I don't know whether some of my German DNA is coming from my German born mother or from the unknown father of William Saunders.

www.GEDMATCH.com IDs

Pat Saunders A007556

Sandra Collins A907734

Steven Bishop A672157

Kelly O'Leary A725949

David Kibbe

by Pat D Saunders G2G6 (7.8k points)
+6 votes
It is a very large population of Germans that immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1700's.  My ancestors Johan Wendel Engel/Angel (1751-1818) appears to have been born in Freinsheim, Pfalz, Germany and migrated to Philadelphia in Oct 1768.  He and his brother Jacob were living in Northampton Co, but served and traveled during the Revolutionary War eventually living briefly in Tennessee, and heading to Missouri in the 1790;s and stayed there until his death abt 1818.

He married Charlotte Shalley whos father Hans Adam Shalley was born 1720 in Ernstausenhof, Pfalz, Germany and family lived in Marienthal,Ahrweiler, Pfalz, Germany,  and arrived in Pennsylvania with his father Johann Ludwig Schelli (1695-1782) in 1743 with his wife Anna Margaretha Wilhelms (1682-1744) and lived in Lebanon, Lancaster Co.

Myself and 3 siblings, and 2 1st cousins (and several distant collaborating cousins) have tested with Ancestry.com and FamilyTreeDNA (yDNA for my father and a brother, and a distant confirmed cousin) and 23andme)  .

GEDMatch number for me is A097468.  I uploaded my DNA match to my wikitree profile.  Good luck. Keep me informed of your progress.  

I was involved in a very interesting indepth YDNA project with my father's DNA (he died in 2008), but his DNA lives on.  The people that worked on the FGC22501 project had pretty deep knowledge of genetics and DNA.  Through various tests on SNPs many of us established a connection to a Roman era individual found in York, England in a Roman cemetery.  The work has been very fascinating,.  Do a google search: National Geographic Headless Gladiators.

Laurie Angel (Angel-983)
by Laurie Angel G2G6 Mach 1 (14.7k points)
+7 votes
Hi,

My personal DNA has not been tested (working on mine and hubbys) but our son has been DNA tested. My husband is a descendant from the Kiess/Wurster Line in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania (Dunkard Church in Blooming Grove, Lyco, PA). We are both descendants from families in Tioga County as well.

The surnames are: Kiess, Wurster, Lovell, Ulmer, Heim, Pepperman, COhick, Cline, Kress, Liex on his mothers side for Lyco.

The surnames are: Krise, Biser, Preston (not sure if 100% Germany at this time) for his fathers side in Tioga.
by Christine Preston G2G6 Mach 6 (64.9k points)
I have my DNA entered, my GedMatch # is SM5831059.   My Mom is a Waltz they are all part of a line also from Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, also part of the Dunkard Church in Blooming Grove, just like Christine's husband.
Hi Don!

Waltz is also mixed into the family! I have been working on adding them to the tree here so if you see anything that can be linked or sources added. feel free to add them to the tree. Send me a private message if you want to share information.
+6 votes
My Swiss-German ancestors came to Lancaster, County, PA in the 1840-1850s.  Surnames were Hupper, Musser, Bealler and Knauble. Of course the spellings of these names vary (sounded works better) depending on census taker. I have had both an Ancestry and a GEDMatch DNA test uploaded to WikiTree. Hupper name is shown from Wurttemberg, Germany. Bealler alternates between Switzerland and Germany.
by Nancy Garrett G2G Crew (490 points)
+10 votes
Hi Andreas,  gedmatch kit T761081 Jesse Elliott. When I lowered thresholds to your levels a LOT low matches came up on many Chromosomes. I invite you to have a look because i dont know which specifics your looking for.

 My moms paternal side is Brower,(Brauer) from Germany/ Netherlands. They came to William Penns colony in Chester,PA around 1720s. Hubert Brower &Ann Eis with sons John, Christian, & Henry. They founded a massive family & i have Automosal matches with several.

 Also you will find some male descendants that are also E-V13 that are in the Brewer/Brower project on FTDNA. Good luck & of course keep me posted if there is success! JE
by

Hi Jesse (and others following this thread),

looks like we're really onto something. I've compared your kit against my father and his two sisters. We do have indeed 5 segments where you match with all three siblings and 7 where you match two of them:

Matching all 3:

Chr Start Location End Location Centimorgans (cM) SNPs

1 186,155,499 190,024,731 2.0 621

2 196,434,716 199,488,869 2.3 530

3 3,255,819 4,752,434 5.0 582

10 18,744,782 20,322,983 1.3 511

12 20,835,693 21,749,447 1.5 531

Matching two of them:

2 159,369,731 163,124,693 2.2 684

7 12,536,902 14,346,084 3.1 623

7 32,424,097 34,959,160 2.3 560

8 50,415,911 53,537,958 2.6 526

8 91,246,126 94,427,906 2.0 522

16 78,075,910 79,619,328 3.2 602

18 22,707,729 23,892,757 1.4 586

All of them were FTDNA kits compared against each other, so we have 674k SNP's coverage for best results.

FYI - I used GEDmatch (not Genesis) with 500 SNP's and 1 cM minimum threshold in the 1:1 comparison.

Kits to match against are (paternal side):

T443643 (Juergen Basso)

T231565 (Ingrid Margarethe Dinger)

T080473 (Ruth Geise)

All three of them are my paternal line in case someone else wants to go ahead with a similar analysis.

As we're trying to identify deep Palatine ancestors DNA I also compared your kit against my mum, her sister and her brother. Again, 3 matches with all three of them and 7 matches with two of them:

Matching all three of them:

3 84,761,773 89,485,137 1.7 744

8 26,335,782 27,532,734 1.7 561

12 20,685,192 21,749,447 1.8 607

Matching two of them:

6 31,028,936 33,010,561 1.6 2,694

7 121,738,201 125,195,173 2.5 662

8 17,627,431 18,551,815 2.0 551

12 25,556,120 27,470,013 2.6 576

14 58,913,951 61,565,977 1.7 510

14 62,470,539 66,990,924 2.9 833

16 78,735,157 80,294,248 4.2 633

Kits to match against are (maternal side):

T337227 (Christel Schink)

T604749 (Marieta West)

T028826 (Manfred Cremer)

One of the segments (chr 12 20,685,192 - 21,749,447) is shared by all parties (both all my 3 from my paternal and all 3 from my maternal side). It has 530 to 610 SNP's in common. Seems to indicate that we've found indeed some deep Palatine connections here.

Spurred by this I went on to analyze where in the wider Palatine region (for me that's more the Eifel and Hunsrück) my ancestors are coming from.

Here's a map of my ancestors in the region:

Maps of Palatine (Eifel-Hunsrück) ancestors

My maternal side ancestors are coming from what is in the lower right of the previous map, I zoomed more in with this one (cities are Ravengiersburg-Rayerschied-Dörrebach-Stromberg-Schöneberg-Spabrücken-Waldalgesheim-Waldhilbersheim-Wallhausen):

Hunsrück region (maternal ancestors)

For my paternal ancestors it's the Eifel region, again a zoom in of the first picture (Hirten-Weiler-Thür-Ochtendung-Plaidt-Lonnig) :

Eifel ancestors (mostly paternal side)

As for that DNA segment which seems to be on both my maternal and paternal side it all points to Weiler (near Hirten) in the Eifel region where I do have a Maria Waldecker (married Schneider) WikiTree profile of Maria Waldecker from my maternal side who seems to be related to the Waldecker from Ochtendung (my paternal side). Both villages are anyway only 23 km apart as you can see in this image:

Route from Weiler to Ochtendung

Lastly the ancestors of Johann Castor Adams WikiTree profile of Johann Castor Adams from Hirten (who is a descendant of the above Maria Waldecker). His son Nicholas Michael Adams WikiTree profile of Nicholas Michael Adams emigrated to the US in 1851 and help found Johnsburg, McHenry County, IL - many ancestors are DNA matches!

Ancestors of Johann Castor Adams 

If you're somehow related to this famous Adams family (pun intended) then that would probably explain the DNA matching segments.

Lastly my main locations and surnames in the Eifel & Hunsrück region:

Paternal side:

Kobern (CONTERMANN or KONDERMANN)

Lonnig (KONTZ or CONTZ or CONZ, RÜBER) 

Ochtendung (MONREAL, BARTZ, BERESHEIM, KOHNZ or CONTZ or CONZ, OSTER, ROHM, WALDECKER, RÜBSAM, NÜRBURG)

Plaidt (BARTZ, WEIBER, WEILER)

Thür (HALBEDEL)

Weiler (WALDECKER)

Maternal side:

Dörrebach (SONNET, DUPOND)

Hirten (ADAMS, BANTHUS)

Ravengiersburg (KNICHEL, WINCK, BERES)

Rayerschied (BERRES, KESSELER)

Schöneberg (FREISEM)

Spabrücken (FREISEM)

Stromberg (DUPONT, ORBEN, FREISEM)

Waldalgesheim (FREISEM)

Waldhilbersheim (DULIUS or TULLIUS, RÖHSER)

Wallhausen (DULIUS or TULLIUS, KNICHEL, DUPONT, BARTH, RÖHSER)

Weiler (ADAMS)

Looking forward to see if others can identify more deep Palatine ancestral segments!

Andreas, nothing shared with you but Jesse, 6 segments shared. I fiqured something would be there as I recognized the Brouwer name (runs down to my grandmother on my fathers side)

Comparing Kit H226324 (Nicholas Notestine) and T761081 (Jesse Elliott)

Largest segment = 4.7 cM
Total of segments > 2 cM = 16.6 cM
6 matching segments

Andreas I lowered the numbers down on a 1 to 1 GEDmatch Genesis kit comparison to Ingrid Dinger and I'm looking at

total half matches = 61.4 - largest segment 6.7 cm -

11 shared segments. MRCA = 5.9 SNPs range from 109 to 316.

I'm new to genetic genealogy and an amateur at best in genealogy in general lol I was playing with all the kit # in this thread and decided to experiment with what you were talking about. My ancestors (and me) are from Pennsylvania. Prior to that  - Germany and Ireland but I don't have a clue where. I have most of them back to the 1700s or early 1800s at least in this country.

My GEDmatch kit # XJ2139047 - I'm going to keep running numbers now :)

Hello Tina,

I cannot advise to use SNP's lower than 500 in comparisons. As we're trying to analyze for old segments it's ok to go down from the traditional 5 centiMorgan minimum threshold but SNP's in the range of 109 to 316 as you posted are wrong results.

I've just posted the following PoV of mine to a genealogy mailing list:

"I’m still undecided about the results produced by Genesis in general. With the flexible SNP setting it has opened the door even wider to produce FALSE POSITIVE (meaning matches that appear to be correct but aren’t). Having worked in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (formerly named Data Mining) for over 20 years I know that a prediction is always about the adjustment of the confusion matrix (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_matrix) and the decision for which error (type I error meaning false positive or type II error meaning false negative) you should optimize.


What it means is that the guys at GEDmatch have to make a call to either trade for a higher quality (meaning less errors) in FALSE POSITIVES but that would mean a larger number of FALSE NEGATIVE, meaning matches that are true matches won’t be shown to you.So they prefer to keep the quality of the FALSE NEGATIVES high, meaning to rather show you eg. 1 one more true match and don’t care if they show you 5 false matches.

It’s a difficult decision and usually the optimal balance is only achieved if eg a cost function is added (meaning, what is the cost of a FALSE POSITIVE vs the cost of a FALSE NEGATIVE). Think of your loan application, a FALSE POSITIVE will cost the bank the whole loan money (you will never pay a single cent back) vs the cost of not making the business with those FALSE NEGATIVE (and thus losing that nice profit.

So in general I’d like to issue the warning to everyone who uses Genesis to be aware of this and focus on those matches with a higher SNP count (companies like 23andMe use 500 as a minimum). Every SNP more that the algorithm finds as a potential match (we can never be sure as small snippets of DNA are stitched together, see fuzzy endings of matching segments) is a good one in general.
"

Thanks for the reply Andreas! I was looking at too many numbers I suppose. I thought you said 1 CMA and 50 SNPS. Re-reading the thread I see that wasn't you. Ah well, I'm simply playing with numbers at this point. At least some of those numbers are beginning to make some sense thanks to patient explanations from people like yourself. Thank you!
I’m brand new to this forum and have no understanding about chromosome comparison but I see you have a variation of my name “Keesler” posted. I just sent you a personal reply not knowing this thread exited with multiple replies.

I have early German settlers in Pennsylvania who migrated from Haverstraw area New York, specifically, the Keesler family that I’m certain of. My cousin has conducted a lot more research on this than I. One of their offspring, George Harman Keesler, married into the Conklin family, via Elinor, from whom it appears a great many PA Keeslers descended. George’s brother, William, stayed on the NY side but near Cochecton, so that family line may be of help there as well.

My DNA was just recently uploaded to GEDmatch and kit # is BH6661801. If someone can point me to something I can read that’s in layman’s terms so I can grasp what to look for and what it means, I’d be very appreciative.
+6 votes
My husband Halpin-348 is virtually 80% pure pennsylvania dutch. I tease him several times a week telling him I just finished another branch and guess where it leads back to. Of course Germany!

I also have a lot of German roots. Salvatore-85

I have Ancestry, Family Tree, and Gedmatch. I'll have to get him to upload his Ancestry to Gedmatch.
by Louann Halpin G2G6 Mach 7 (70.8k points)
+5 votes

Hello, 

I do have ancestry back to PA. On both sides of my family. My Gedmatch is...M156615. https://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Teeter-392/5

Thank you for your interest and information.

Have a Great day and remember it's gonna get better! 

Grand Ol Aubrey Teeter

by Aubrey Teeter G2G Crew (550 points)
+5 votes

My fathers side is from Germany and immigrated to PA circa 1785, possibly earlier. H226324 is my gedmatch.

Notestine-82 is the immigrant

by Nicholas Notestine G2G Crew (350 points)
+5 votes
My maternal grandmother's side were Pennsylvania Dutch arriving in the early 1700s.  They intermarried all the way to my grandmother.  I  am on Gedmatch M831664 and A379277.
by
+5 votes

Hello Andreas.  My gedmatch kit is A628351. I am on Ancestry at 'Clements Family Tree1.2". Wikitree id is Clements-2728. My Rader line has a few that might fit.

Hope this can be helpful. Al

Rader, Conrad 

1732 - Mutterstadt, Ludwigshafen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

Heidelburg, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, United States

Rader, Hans Adam 

02 Jul 1706 - Mutterstadt, Ludwigshafen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

18 Apr 1773 - Timberville, Rockingham, Virginia, United States

Rader, Hans Michael 

22 Apr 1714 - Mutterstadt, Ludwigshafen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

18 Apr 1789 - Upper Hanover, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States

Rader, Johann Heinrich 

22 Apr 1704 - Mannheim, Mannheim, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany

20 Feb 1753 - Heidelberg, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, United States

Rader, Johann Heinrich 

25 May 1721 - Mutterstadt, Rheinland, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

07 Aug 1801 - Bath, Northampton, Pennsylvania, United States

Rader, John Henry 

1704 - Mutterstadt, Ludwigshafen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

1787 - Heidelberg, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, United States

 

by Al Clements G2G2 (2.8k points)
+5 votes
I have Swiss German Mennonite immigrants.
by Anonymous Crewe G2G6 Mach 1 (10.9k points)
+5 votes
I have one family branch for sure.  The BORUFF family who were originally BOGENREIFF or BOGENRIEFF.  They were originally from Niederhochstadt ( Now Just Hochstadt ) in the Rhineland Pfalz.  Near the old fortress city of Landau.   They first moved to Saint Peterburg Russia which was then over half German and then to the Pennsylvania Colony.  I think the Boruff name was a mistake by some English speaking immigration clerk at the docks. Probably misunderstanding the word Beruf which means "profession".   Family lore has it that they were professional soldiers who fought on the Protestant side and then had to leave when Catholic Bavaria took over the area.   That explains the period they spent in St Petersburg Russia seeking employment with the Czar.  My Dad's grandma, ( my great grandma ) was a Boruff.  Her dad was John Kelly Boruff, who served in the Indiana Cavalry during the Civil War and who was later a Sheriff in Missouri.
by Alexander Clark G2G3 (3.7k points)
+5 votes

Figure it doesn't hurt to throw my hat in the ring as well. I'm kit A276548 and have a number of Pennsylvania German lines - a few of the names are below:

Bucks County

Ackerman, Horn, Zangmeister, Hinkle

Berks County 

Alt, Ruppenthal, Fenstermacher, Kercher/Kirschner, Schnyder, Beishline, Fair, Buhler/Bealer/Pealer, Speiglemoyer, Baum, Blimbott, Driess, Spengler, Yeager, Blatt, Buhler, Cushwa/Gushwa, Derendinger, Dieter, Driess, Spengler, Henn/Hain, Horner

Elsewhere

Gotwals, Snyder, Hartman, Rishel, Hendricks, Blanck, Horlacher, Warg

by Christopher Roberts G2G2 (2.9k points)

Comparing Kit H226324 (Nicholas Notestine) and A276548 (Christopher Roberts)

1941) No shared DNA segments found

Funny, I've matched with a ton of people here, of names I haven't seen, but I have Driess and Spengler in my tree and no match!

Is your Driess the Treece and Treese also? Note Drebs is also a version.

Yup, my Driess shows up in number of different versions, but don't think I've seen Drebs yet. My tree is such a hodgepodge of Pennsylvania Dutch that I'm half surprised we're not a match.
Drebs comes from D sounding like the T and the B is what double "S" is in German. Took me awhile to connect that but it does show up that way in some historical documentation.

Christina https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Treece-204

Is the closest 'Treece' or Driess or whichever version to show up in my line. Im direct descendent of them and her husband John is my brick wall. Cant for the life of me get past him. Been trying for 10+ years
+5 votes

Here is my Gedmatch no. H879189. If you follow the Stout line on my Mother's WikiTree profile you can find Cypert's and Overmann's who came from Germany. 

by Chris Wallace G2G1 (1.1k points)
edited by Chris Wallace
+5 votes
I have early German and Swiss ancestors that live in Penn. and northern MD. I have not had a DNA test, but might at some point. My Swiss ancestors were anabaptist  and my German ancestors were German Reformed. Family names include Steiner, Winebrenner, Ebersole, Kauffman, Mellinger, Gochenour, Kneisley, Hersche, and a number of unknowns.
by Alison Gardner G2G6 Mach 8 (82.2k points)

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