Here are some pointers if you look at the Ritter Surname DNA Project Website. The first group (colored light blue) are those who are descended from or match descendants of Jesse Ritter of North Carolina. I'm next (ID 4640, colored yellow) followed by the descendant of Hans George Ritter of Exetor, Berks Co. The website states that Hans George was born in Eppingen, Germany (per claims of descendants), but I'm not convinced that is the case. The descendant of John Ritter (b. NC) and Jacob Ritter, who settled in St. Joseph Co., IN is ID 8791 (kind of a lavender color). I'm also descended from the Elias Ritter whose descendants are shown in purple and is believed to be descended from an Elias Ritter who is claimed to have come as early as 1650 and settled in Western Maryland. Those Ritter were not originally Brethren (although many became so in Kosciusko Co., IN--e.g. my ancestor Catherine Ritter was the wife Elder Peter Hamman who ministered in Camp Creek, Kosciusko Co.). Some of the Maryland Ritters who have been mentioned may belong to this Ritter family. One lesson from the y-chromosome testing is that there are a lot of different Ritter families out there with different origins, so one cannot assume a common ancestry because of a shared last name (my uncle claimed we were related to Tex Ritter, who he had met, but that is clearly not true). There is also always a (very) slight danger of a misattributed ancestry in any generation (because of an unrecorded adoption or extra-marital paternity), which may result in someone with a Ritter surname having a non-Ritter y-chromosome. For this reason, many projects try to get descendants of different sons of the most distant ancestor to participate (if they match we can be assured we have the original y-chromosome "signature" of that original ancestor), although that is often not possible. Our Ritter project is still pretty small (33 participants) as y-chromosome projects go, and we hope to find more matches in the future. Winter, I searched for the Dellenbach surname at Family Tree DNA (the largest genealogical DNA testing company) and no Dellenbachs have been tested there. If you go to http://www.familytreedna.com/ you can search for other surnames. I also tried the Sorenson project (http://www.smgf.org/pages/ydatabase.jspx) and again there were no Dellenbachs. Phil Ritter Ritter surname y-chromosome co-administrator (also Hamman and Bachman). At 08:38 PM 6/14/2008, you wrote: >The Ritter Surname DNA Project is at the following website: >http://www.stanford.edu/~philr/RitterDNA/RitterResults.html > >Jim Freed, administrator >Freed surname and McCabe Surname DNA Projects > >----- Original Message ----- >From: <Chocybrown@aol.com> >To: <brethren@rootsweb.com> >Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 6:29 PM >Subject: Re: [BRE] Ritter DNA > > > > Is there a website where the RITTER DNA matches are shown? My third > > great > > grandparents are both RITTERs, both born in 1790 in Virginia, both > > or one of the > > families probably had ties back to Maryland. One of the families had > > ties to > > the Lutheran Church at Winchester. However, my second great > > grandfather, as > > well as his sister married the GOCHENOUR siblings. The GOCHENOUR > > family were > > a Mennonite family from the Back Creek area of Shenandoah County, > > Virginia > > just north of Woodstock. > > > > Chocy > > > ------------------------ >Search the Archives at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/BRETHREN > ------------------------ > Support Our Sponsoring Agency > The Fellowship Of Brethren Genealogists (FOBG) >For further information contact Ron McAdams mailto:McAdamsr@hotmail.com > ------------------------ > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >BRETHREN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >the quotes in the subject and the body of the message