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Description
The Rinberg Surname DNA Project was created to determine which Rinberg lineages share a common ancestor. The Project includes the surname variants Rinberg, Rynberg, Rimberg, Rymberg, Reenberg, Reinberg, and Roomberg among families of Eastern European Jewish origin. In many of the families studied, various spellings of these names were used interchangeably. For simplicity, the spelling “Rinberg” is used on this webpage to include all spelling variations. These surnames are also found in the Netherlands and in Scandinavia, and people with those heritages are also welcome to participate.
BACKGROUND
Genealogical records from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show that these uncommon surnames were concentrated in particular locations in what was then the Russian Empire, among them:
The Brest Region of Belarus (towns of Bereza, Ivanovo, and Kobrin)
Odessa, Nikolayev, and Lvov in the Ukraine
Szydlowiec, Warsaw, and Lodz, Poland
This geographic clustering makes it likely that there are relationships between various families with the same or similar surnames. Yet the links between branches have often been lost as a result of emigration, name changes, document destruction, and of course the Holocaust.
From my own research, I have good documentation about my great-grandfather, Meir Nissan Rinberg of Bereza. Yet I know nothing about any of his siblings, and families in those days tended to be quite large. The same situation is true for other Rinberg genealogists whom I’ve contacted over the years. Once you go back a few generations, we don’t know the names of siblings for the generation born around 1865. DNA testing can help us identify which branches are linked. This can help us re-establish family connections for those who are interested in doing so. It can also help us reconstruct the stories of diaspora and understand our families’ history in a new light.
Today, descendants of these Rinberg and surname-variant families live in the USA, Canada, Argentina, the UK, and Israel. In addition to the original surnames, there are individuals named Ring and Greenberg who are descended from Rinberg roots.
Requirements
A Surname Project traces members of a family that share a common surname. They are of the most interest in cultures where surnames are passed on from father to son like the Y-Chromosome. This project is for males taking a Y-Chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) test. Thus, the individual who tests must be a male who wants to check his direct paternal line (father's father's father's...) with a Y-DNA12, Y-DNA37, Y-DNA67, or Y-DNA111 test and who has one of the surnames listed for the project. Females do not carry their father's Y-DNA. Females who would like to check their father's direct paternal line can have a male relative with his surname order a Y-DNA test. Females can also order an mtDNA test for themselves such as the mtDNAPlus test or the mtFullSequence test and participate in an mtDNA project. Both men and women may take our autosomal Family Finder test to discover recent relationships across all family lines.
Surnames In This Project
Reenberg, Reinberg, Rimberg, Rinberg, Roomberg, Rymberg, Rynberg