Volga Germans- Background

Administrators

Background

The Volga Germans (German: Wolgadeutsche or Russlanddeutsche, Russian: Povolzhskie nemtsy) were ethnic Germans living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia around Saratov and to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain German culture, language, traditions and churches. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to the Midwestern United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and other countries.

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 during World War II, the Soviet government considered the Volga Germans potential collaborators and transported them wholesale to labour camps, where many died. After the war, it expelled some ethnic Germans to the West. In the late 1980s, many of the remaining ethnic Germans moved from the Soviet Union to Germany.

Project Stats

Statistic Type Count
Combined GEDCOMs Uploaded 17
Distinct mtDNA Haplogroups 35
Distinct Y-DNA Confirmed Haplogroups 18
Distinct Y-DNA Predicted Haplogroups 7
Family Finder 40
Maternal Ancestor Information 70
mtDNA 50
mtDNA Full Sequence 28
mtDNA Plus 41
mtDNA Subgroups 18
Paternal Ancestor Information 77
Predicted Y-DNA Haplogroups 27
Total Members 100
Unpredicted Y-DNA Haplogroups 1
Unreturned Kits 5
WTY 2
Y-DNA Deep Clade (After 2008) 10
Y-DNA Deep Clade (Prior to 2008) 4
Y-DNA Subgroups 12
Y-DNA111 6
Y-DNA12 63
Y-DNA25 46
Y-DNA37 45
Y-DNA67 30