Anabaptist Meyer Family I1 Haplogroup

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: Meyer Myers

(Under the Baschi Meyer Project)

Contents 1 I1 Haplogroup Meyer Family 2 Anabaptist Origins 2.1 The tree proposed by Jane Evans Best (1998) is incorrect 2.2 Possibility 1 : The immigrant brothers were sons of Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim 2.3 Possibility 2 : The immigrant brothers were grandsons of Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim 2.4 Possible origins in Bern 3 Sources

I1 Haplogroup Meyer Family

This family comprises three clusters, in two branches descending from a common ancestor born c.1500.

The main branch of the family has Anabaptist origins, and is traced through immigrant brothers Hans and Christian who arrived in Pennsylvania in the early 1700's. This branch comprises two clusters :

• The first cluster includes descendants of Christian Meyer b.1708. Two of these descendants have upgraded to Big Y, and have been assigned haplogroup FTC62304. The ancestor of this haplogroup is estimated to have been born c.1740,^[1] and so it is likely that Christian (born a generation earlier) is the ancestor of the haplogroup.
• The second cluster includes two testers who are believed to descend from Christian's brother, John b.c.1715. No Big Y data is available for this line, and so it is not known whether it also falls under the FTC62304 haplogroup.

A second branch of the family is represented by a single tester whose ancestors settled in the same part of Pennsylvania, and who appear to have had connections to the Quaker community, but whose connection to the broader Meyer family is not known.

Y-DNA matched descendant lines for I1 haplogroup Anabaptist Meyer family

Profiles for the most recent ancestors of these lines can be found at :

• Christian Meyer (1751-1822)
• Andreas Meyer (1753-1833)
• Henry Meyer (1760-1836)
• John Meyer (1715-1797)
• David Myers (1778-1840)

Anabaptist Origins

The immigrants Hans (1684-1757) and Christian (1690-1760) are known to be brothers. Their birthdates and their relationship to each other are established by records in the Metzler Bible, which was received by Christian from his father in Ibersheimhof in 1723.^[2] Their father's name is not known.

Records for Meyer families in the Ibersheim area are limited, but include :

• in 1685 in Rudelsheim, Hans Meyer and his wife Anna Bauman, with nine children, two of whom were married, were recorded on a census of Anabaptists ^[3][4]
• in 1693 in Rudelsheim, Hans Meyer signed a letter for the Mennonite travellers to Friederichstadt ^[5]
• in 1709 in Ibersheim, Hans Meyer signed a letter to the Mennonite Congregation of the Netherlands ^[6]
• in 1723 in Ibersheim, Christian Meyer received the bible from his father ^[2]

It is these scant records which are used to construct a family tree for the I1a Haplogroup Meyer family.

The tree proposed by Jane Evans Best (1998) is incorrect

Jane Evans Best speculated in 1998 ^[7] that the father of the immigrants Hans and Christian was :

• named Christian.
• one of the nine children recorded living in 1685 with Hans Meyer (c.1621-c.1693) in Rudelsheim (9 miles from Ibersheim).
• brother to Hans Meyer who was recorded in Ibersheim in 1709, and that this Hans was the immigrant Hans (c.1666-1722) who had settled in Conestoga, PA by 1719.

Diagram created by Gina Meyers, Jan 2024, based on work by Jane Evans Best (1998).

More recently, y-DNA evidence has shown that the immigrant Hans Meyer who settled in Conestoga was completely unrelated to the family in Ibersheim. Best's construction of the family tree is incorrect.

It is nevertheless likely that there is a family relationship between Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim, Hans Meyer recorded in Ibersheim in 1709, and the immigrant brothers Hans and Christian. Several possible scenarios are presented for consideration.

Possibility 1 : The immigrant brothers were sons of Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim

Under this construction, it is suggested that Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim and Ibersheim was :

• born c.1640
• aged about 20 when his first child was born c.1660.
• aged about 45 when his child Hans (1684-1757) was born in 1684.
• aged about 50 when his child Christian (1690-1760), was born in 1690.
• aged about 69 when he signed a letter to the Mennonite congregation of the Netherlands in 1709
• probably not the son of Baschi Meyer

Arguments made against this construction :

• It would be unusual to have children born over a period of 30 years, when most women were aged in their early 40's by the time their last child was born. But perhaps Hans married twice.

Possibility 2 : The immigrant brothers were grandsons of Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim

Under this construction it is suggested that Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim was :

• born c.1635
• aged about 25 when his first child was born c.1660.
• the father of a son named Hans who settled in Ibersheim
• probably not a son of Baschi

It is also suggested that Hans Meyer of Ibersheim was :

• born c.1660
• aged about 25 at the time of the 1685 census
• the father of Hans (1684-1757) and Christian (1690-1760)
• aged about 49 when he signed the letter to the Netherlands in 1709.

Possible origins in Bern

Neither of these possibilities offers convincing evidence that Hans Meyer of Rudelsheim was the child born in either 1621 or 1630 in Stallikon, son of Baschi Meyer.

Ibersheim had been a Mennonite settlement for some time, and various sources suggest that many of the Mennonite settlers in Ibersheim came originally from Bern, in Switzerland.^[8][9]

Sources

1. ↑ FamilyTreeDNA Discover, viewed 9 Feb 2024 at https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/I-FTC62304/scientific
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Metzler, C. E. "The Bishop Metzler Bible," Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, Vol. 11, 1911. HathiTrust.
3. ↑ Guth, Hermann, Guth, Gertrud, Mast, J. Lemar and Mast, Lois Ann (1987). Palatine Mennonite Census Lists, 1664-1793. Morgantown, PA : Masthof.
4. ↑ Baughman, J. Ross (1997). Apart from the world : an account of the origins and destinies of various Swiss Mennonites ... p.70. Edinburg, VA : Shenandoah History. Viewed at https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/148167/?offset=&return=1#page=78&viewer=picture&o=search&n=0&q=meyer
5. ↑ Sutter, Sem C. (1979). Palatine Mennonites in Schleswig-Holstein, 1693-1698. Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage vol.2 no.2, p.19, April 1979 viewed at http://www.danielhaston.com/resources/Friedrichstadt-group-PA-Mennonite-Heritage.pdf
6. ↑ Eshleman, H. Frank (1917). Historic Background and Annals of the Swiss and German Pioneer Settlers of South Eastern Pennsylvania, p.246 accessed at https://vibdoc.com/queue/historic-pennsylvania.html
7. ↑ Best, Jane Evans (1998). Meyer Families Update. Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, April 1998.
8. ↑ Haston, Wayne (nd). “Village of Ibersheim of the Palatinate in Germany”, viewed Nov 2023 at http://www.danielhaston.com/roots/ibersheim/ibersheim.htm
9. ↑ Braun, Abraham. (1957). Ibersheim (Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 15 November 2023, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ibersheim_(Rheinland-Pfalz,_Germany)&oldid=171281