I am a Pennsylvania German, aka Pennsylvania Deustch/Dutch, on all branches of my Pedigree Chart for at least 8 generations. See this link for more on the PA German population group.
http://www.kerchner.com/padutch.htm
My genealogy has been solidly proven via 30 years of traditional genealogical research and also has been verified on the direct male and direct female lines via Y-DNA and mtDNA tests. My Pedigree Chart for 8 generations in all branches is PA German which is a mixture of Germans, French Huguenot, Swiss, and a very small bit of English. The PA Germans lived for generations as an isolated population group in PA who usually married within their own kind, up until my generation. They also had their own language dialect for over 200 years. All my ancestors for 8 generations back lived and intermarried within a 20 mile radius of where I live today, and intermarried within their own kind. My parents were even 4th cousins of each other as are many people from early settlers of the areas of Lehigh and Berks County PA. My parents even spoke the PA German dialect, as did their parents, and their parents, etc. Up until my generation their were very, very few East Asians, i.e., Chinese, Korean, or Japanese in this area. There is no known East Asian marriage or relationships, or even casual contact or even geographic proximity, in any of my lines on my chart. Needless to say, I was very, very surprised with the results of my DNAPrint "geographic ancestry" test results when I received it, and it showed a 21% East Asian content and 79% European instead of a 100% European which I had expected. In discussing this with AncestrybyDNA lab personnel I have learned that surprisingly to them some other PA Germans tested have had similar significant high teen, low 20's% East Asian content results. At present they have no clear explanation as to why.
So I have introduced my theory to them and others, which is that maybe the PA German immigrants who came to this area in the early 1700's may have brought with them a significant East Asian genetic content, possibly left over from the various "Asian hordes" invasions of Europe at various times, such as the Huns and Mongols, and preserved over there in the isolated upper Rhine River basin valleys for hundreds of years. The HUNS sacked the city of Mainz on the Rhine River and made it into France and nothern Italy circa 454 A.D. attacking the Western Roman Empire controlled regions. Typically these barbarian invaders killed all the males and took the women as wives and captives. Large percentages of the indigenous population were killed. Other asian type population group invasions have occured between then and the 1500's with similar devastating results on the indigenous populations. So these asian hordes invasion could have left a significant genetic content within the indigenous "European" population in certain areas. And since the immigrant ancestors of the PA Germans who came to PA in the early 1700's also lived as an isolated population in the inland counties of s.e. Pennsylvania, marrying within their own kind and avoiding the "English" as they called outsiders, for about 200 years they may have preserved this significant Asian genetic content to this time. If so, this would be a significant discovery about this unique "European" population group in Pennsylvania.
Further research is needed to prove or disprove this theory. I, and some others, have been trying to get some PhD type geneticists to look at this further. Hopefully more "pure blood" (per their Pedigree Chart) PA Germans, aka PA Deutsch/Dutch, can be tested to obtain more data, and hopefully come to some conclusions.
Comments welcome.
Charles Kerchner
http://www.kerchner.com/kerchner.htm
http://www.kerchner.com/padutch.htm
My genealogy has been solidly proven via 30 years of traditional genealogical research and also has been verified on the direct male and direct female lines via Y-DNA and mtDNA tests. My Pedigree Chart for 8 generations in all branches is PA German which is a mixture of Germans, French Huguenot, Swiss, and a very small bit of English. The PA Germans lived for generations as an isolated population group in PA who usually married within their own kind, up until my generation. They also had their own language dialect for over 200 years. All my ancestors for 8 generations back lived and intermarried within a 20 mile radius of where I live today, and intermarried within their own kind. My parents were even 4th cousins of each other as are many people from early settlers of the areas of Lehigh and Berks County PA. My parents even spoke the PA German dialect, as did their parents, and their parents, etc. Up until my generation their were very, very few East Asians, i.e., Chinese, Korean, or Japanese in this area. There is no known East Asian marriage or relationships, or even casual contact or even geographic proximity, in any of my lines on my chart. Needless to say, I was very, very surprised with the results of my DNAPrint "geographic ancestry" test results when I received it, and it showed a 21% East Asian content and 79% European instead of a 100% European which I had expected. In discussing this with AncestrybyDNA lab personnel I have learned that surprisingly to them some other PA Germans tested have had similar significant high teen, low 20's% East Asian content results. At present they have no clear explanation as to why.
So I have introduced my theory to them and others, which is that maybe the PA German immigrants who came to this area in the early 1700's may have brought with them a significant East Asian genetic content, possibly left over from the various "Asian hordes" invasions of Europe at various times, such as the Huns and Mongols, and preserved over there in the isolated upper Rhine River basin valleys for hundreds of years. The HUNS sacked the city of Mainz on the Rhine River and made it into France and nothern Italy circa 454 A.D. attacking the Western Roman Empire controlled regions. Typically these barbarian invaders killed all the males and took the women as wives and captives. Large percentages of the indigenous population were killed. Other asian type population group invasions have occured between then and the 1500's with similar devastating results on the indigenous populations. So these asian hordes invasion could have left a significant genetic content within the indigenous "European" population in certain areas. And since the immigrant ancestors of the PA Germans who came to PA in the early 1700's also lived as an isolated population in the inland counties of s.e. Pennsylvania, marrying within their own kind and avoiding the "English" as they called outsiders, for about 200 years they may have preserved this significant Asian genetic content to this time. If so, this would be a significant discovery about this unique "European" population group in Pennsylvania.
Further research is needed to prove or disprove this theory. I, and some others, have been trying to get some PhD type geneticists to look at this further. Hopefully more "pure blood" (per their Pedigree Chart) PA Germans, aka PA Deutsch/Dutch, can be tested to obtain more data, and hopefully come to some conclusions.
Comments welcome.
Charles Kerchner
http://www.kerchner.com/kerchner.htm
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