About us
Welcome to the Swiss Anabaptist Research Project
The Swiss Anabaptist DNA Project was set up to use y-DNA and mt-DNA to explore the early origins and connections between families with Swiss roots in the Reformation. Other families from the northern Alps and southern Germany who were early participants in the Anabaptist movement are also eligible to participate in this project.Because the project uses y-DNA and mt-DNA, it is open only to direct matrilineal or patrilineal descendants of the early Anabaptist famlies, since these descendants will carry mt-DNA or y-DNA which reflects their Swiss Anabaptist ancestry.
In order to join the project, you must be able to trace your ancestry to the Swiss Anabaptist families via a matrilineal line (traced only through female ancestors, no male ancestors) or a patrilineal line (traced only through male ancestors, no female ancestors).
Individuals whose Anabaptist ancestry is traced via another line which includes both male and female ancestors are welcome to join the Anabaptist Family Finder project.
Individuals with Low German Mennonite heritage should participate in the Mennonite DNA project.
The project supports the genealogical investigation of lineages where one uses the paternal y-DNA or maternal mtDNA results to confirm the existing genealogical paper trail or to work around a documentation brick wall. There are a number of cases where existing paper trails have been found to have errors which are present in and continue to be propagated by on-line genealogical databases.
Additional testing, especially with the paternal y-DNA, allows for a deeper ancestral investigation of the lineage centuries before the occurrence of surnames. Early investigations are identifying that some Swiss surname lineages share the same patrilineal line 800-2000 years ago. Deeper ancestral interpretation of results opens the door to understanding how some of the lineages arrived at and settled into their Alpine locations.
A related project, the Anabaptist Family Finder, project uses FamilyFinder results to investigate Anabaptist ancestral relationship from any part of the family tree. Individuals who have Amish / Brethren / Mennonite / Hutterite or other Anabaptist ancestors somewhere in their family tree should join the Family Finder project.
Project administrators will not be maintaining pedigrees of project participants due to the increasing number of different lineages represented in the project. Administrators are available to provide testing guidance based upon your matches and your research goals.