At least four of John and Barbara's sons have descendants with the Holder surname: John b. 1725, whose descendants moved to New Brunswick at the time of the American Revolution, and Joseph b. 1727, George b. 1729 and Charles b. 1744, all of whom moved to North Carolina. Another son, Jacob b. 1741, may have had children but we have no information on them. We hope that DNA analysis will shed some light on John's Holder ancestry.
Markers 26 through 37 have been tested on sample 042.
This family belongs to haplogroup I2a. This has been confirmed by the Deep Clade test on sample 002. Although this haplogroup is found predominantly in eastern Europe and the Balkans, a variant form I2a*-West, formerly known as "western I1b", is found as a minority type throughout the countries bordering the Baltic and North Sea. Family Tree DNA doesn't differentiate these two variants, but this Holder family matches the diagnostic criteria for I2a*-West. For further discussion of this haplogroup, please see this post to the GENEALOGY-DNA list. There is also a very interesting discussion of this haplotype in England on the Johnson DNA project site
Sample #002: John HOLDER/HOLTER 1694-1784 > Joseph HOLDER > George > John > John > Jacob > Claude
London, England to Dutchess County NY (1710), Philadelphia/Bucks Counties PA, Berks/Lehigh Counties PA, Surry/Stokes Counties NC, Lawrence County IN, Woodford County IL, Gage County NE, Rawlins County KS, Harlan and Adams Counties NE, Denver County CO
Sample #016: Henry Holder (1803-1872) PA>IN, married Sarah Pinkley [error corrected 9/29/07] > Joseph Holder (1839-1922, Indiana)
Presumably Henry is also a descendant of John Holder and Barbara Volck of Pennsylvania, but we don't know yet from which son. One possibility is that he is the son of Johann David Holder, born in North Carolina in 1770, son of George Holder (b. 1727, s/o John and Barbara) and Elisabeth Biehler. Johann David is last seen in NC as a teenage apprentice to his uncle Charles Holder, a saddlemaker. Did he return to Pennsylvania and settle there?
Sample #026 USA: John Holder 1694-1784, m. Barbara Volck (see sample 002) > George Holder and Elisabeth Biehler > George Ludwig Holder and Elizabeth Morris > Joseph Holder and Susannah Leinbach (moved from Stokes Co. NC to Bartholomew Co. IN)> Lewis Cornelius Holder and Louisa Ann Gilbert > Alexander Elmer Holder and Eudora Edna Lockert
This sample differs from 002 and 016 at DYS439.
Sample #039 John Holder 1694-1784, m. Barbara Volck (PA; see sample 002) > George Holder and Elisabeth Biehler (NC)> Heinrich Holder and Maria Hein > Benjamin Stanford Holder and Emily George > James Henry Holder and Susanna Stewart.
Note that although this is from the branch of George Holder, it matches sample 002 (Joseph) over the markers tested. Therefore this would appear to be the original pattern of the family, and the changes in samples 016 and 026 represent more recent changes.
Sample #042 USA: John Holder 1694-1784, m. Barbara Volck (PA; see sample 002) > Charles Holder (1744-1808, PA to NC) > John Holder (1773-1824) > John Timothy Holder (1812-1870) > Wesley W. Holder (1852-1930, Forsyth Co. NC)
We would like very much to check descendants of John Holder b. 1725, who has living descendants in Canada with the surname Holder. Additional descendants of Joseph and George will also be welcome, of course. Charles has relatively few male line descendants, so the representative so far is probably adequate for our analysis. If you're interested in participating, please contact Elizabeth Harris
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