Before DNA written records were the only resource to find information about your ancestors. You could only research back so far as the records took you, and nothing more. In the last few years, genetic scientists have unlocked the written codes within our bodies that link us to or prehistoric ancestors. The results open up a whole new side to genealogical research, and are forming a seamless connection with the origins of all humans in East Africa.
The amazing interconnections between families could not have even been speculated before DNA testing reached a "critical mass"-- when enough people have been tested to set up databases of family group. One group of Swiss surnames collects around the Haplogroup I2b1. Within a very tight subgroup of I2b1 the Mennonite Martin, Yoder and Zimmerman families all find a common origin around the time surnames were first adopted in Switzerland about the year 1200. All three families are Bernese. Martins are most concentrated in the eastern portion of Canton Bern in the towns of Burgdorf, Sumiswald and Eriswil in the valley of the Emme River (Emmenthal), and the town of Rueggisberg south of the city of Bern and west of Thun.
Zimmermans are heavily concentrated in the town of Steffisburg, near Thun, and in Wattenwil, west of Thun. Yoders are also heavily concentrated in Steffisburg, but also are found in the Emmenthal near Schangnau where a hill called "Joderheubel" bears their name, and in the vincinity of Huttwil, near Eriswil.
DNA has proven that these families share a common paternal ancestor within about 800 years ago, who lived either in the Emmenthal or within the Aar River Valley to the west.
Legend holds that all the surviving men of the 1434 plague in Sumiswald could fit around the wooden table in the Baren Inn. Obviously, our ancestors were among the survivers of such a horrific plague, and as the population grew again and spread through northern foothills of the Bernese Alps they settled in the regions attested by our written records today.
But where did these tribes come from before they farmed and herded in the Emmenthal? That question requires a detailed assessment of the socio-political environment in medieval Switzerland prior to the development of the Swiss cantons, in combination with the clues revealed in DNA. Once Haplogroup I2b1 becomes further divided into its specific subclades, the answers will become more specific. For now, the origins of the surname "Yoder" may point to the origins of the Martin/Zimmerman/Yoder clan. About a thousand years ago, Germans from the deep valleys of the Bernese oberland moved south, up over the mountain passes of the Bernese Alps to settle in the remote valleys of the Rhone River in the modern-day French speaking Swiss canton of Valais. As these Germans (today called Walsers) became Christian, they assumed the cult of Saint Theodorus (Saint Yoder), the fourth century Italian missionary who moved into the Alps, claiming discovery of the martyrdom site of the Theban legion at Agaunum (now St. Maurice) and setting up an abbey at Octodurum (now Martigny), both along the upper Rhone River. Undoubtedly many assumed the name Yoder, and our clan in among those who survived and returned to the Bernese Oberland.
This is very exciting. In the last year I have discovered my Y-chromosome haplogroup of I2B1. We had already been aware of our probable ancestral link to the Emmenthal area of northern Switzerland, Ruderswil, to be more precise with our deductions, through the family Leuenberger. Haplogroup research puts the core of I2B1 population origin a little farther north, but certainly within social interaction of the Bern area of Switzerland. Some cousins disagree with my late mother's conclusion from her genealogical research that we (my father's side of the family) are descended from Swiss hero Niklaus Leuenberger, or his brother/father, and state family oral history that the family came from the Alsace-Lorraine area of France. I argue that the Alsace or Lorraine area is less the one hundred miles from the Emmenthal River and that the family, already disgraced by the execution of a family member, and probable members of the chastised Swiss Brethrens or Anabaptists, probably migrated there with others escaping religious persecution. That these were precursors to the Mennonite movement that our original American ancestors were an immediate part of after arriving in Pennsylvania in the 1730's, makes my case even stronger, I believe.
ReplyDeleteYour stated Martin/Zimmerman/Yoder relationship through genetics and geography is undoubtedly real and I feel that there can be no doubt that the Leuenberger clan, from the very same I2B1 haplogroup and area in Switzerland, must be descended from this very same southward hunter, trader, traveling minstrel, or wanderer (for whatever reason) that took up roots in the beautiful Emmenthal Valley.
Found your entry looking up yoder. Found Yoder through Loder, etc. You all are not getting it! Checkout the Caucus Mountain Jews. Loder is Lauter. Use this as a key to Khazarian Jews of Kiev near the C.Mountains, and also Lauder(ter?)Rhine land! If the Yoder's are LauTers, and are of the same group, look for Leuenburger in Kiev, or the Rhine land. Obviously they know how to survive in mountains!
DeleteUpdate on Leuenberger connection: On further evaluation, I think that we presume too much if we conclude that only one I2B1 DNA provider found his way down from northern Europe to the Emmenthal region. Sure all of us with the I2b1 y-chromosome haplogroup share the same paternal ancestor somewhere in the past 9 millenium, but it may not have been as recent as our families time in Switzerland. Since the 'er' on the end of our name probably indicates 'of' or 'from' Leuenberg (village or community) and the only Leuenberg I can find is approx. 30 miles northeast of Berlin, and, since the base of the historic pre Celto-Germanic I2B1 population is north Germany and Denmark, I have to accept that my ancestors came to Ruderswil, in the Emmental Valley of Switzerland, from there after the c.1100 A.D. taking of surnames. Probably several generations were born in Leuenberg after the taking of one's birthplace as an identifier became popular, so it became a fixed part of their identity. So, a guesstimate to the date of the Leuenberger migration south to the alps and subsequently along the Emmen River valley (Emmenthal) would be approx. 1200 A.D. A near estimate of the family's move to Alsace or Lorraine would have to be late 1600's to 1700 A.D., after the familial embarrassment of Niklaus's execution as leader of the failed 'Peasant Revolt' Migration to America came soon after, in the 1730's, and family history of coming here from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France may primarily be reference to their point of departure, as several ports of departure lay on the Rhine River in Alsace. Though, Mennonite enclaves did spend time in that area of France, into the early 18th century, before immigrating to the New World. And, so, here we are, near 300 years later, getting close to being in the United States as long as we were in Switzerland, but nowhere near the 7-8 millenium we spent on the plains of north Germany. And my son, expecting his firstborn, feeling the exact same pressure I felt knowing that I was the last one if I didn't have a male heir. May he have the spirit of his ancestors.
ReplyDeleteWhen Niklaus Leuenberger got executed in 1653, they planted a Tilia in Rüderswil which still stands in Rüderswil. Even Niklaus Leuenbergers farmhouse still stands in Rüderswil.
ReplyDeleteThe Bowman/Bauman families of the central Susquehanna valley in Pennsylvania match this same STR pattern and test positive for I-Z77.
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