DFA Most Wanted is a weekly spotlight on one specific Dillman family group with no representation yet in the Dillman DNA Project — who they were, what’s still unknown, and what a single Y-DNA test could resolve. Know this family, or think you might be connected? Read on.

Family Group 26: The Conrad Dielemann Line

Adam Dielemann, a barber, migrated from Germany to New York in June 1881 and was naturalized there in 1888. He returned to Germany once, in 1890, to visit family — a trip well-enough documented to help confirm his parents’ names, Conrad and Catharina Dieleman, per his 1925 death record. Adam had two sisters who also emigrated, settling in New Jersey, where in succession they both married the same man, Frederick Meyer.

What’s Unresolved

Beyond Conrad and Catharina’s names, this family’s specific origin in Germany isn’t recorded — no town, no region. No DNA testing has been done from this line, so there’s no way yet to connect it to any of the other German-origin Dillman lines already documented elsewhere in the database.

What a Test Could Answer

A Y-DNA test from a male-line descendant of Adam Dielemann could potentially connect this family to a documented region within Germany by matching against already-tested lines — turning “Germany” into something far more specific.

Are You Connected?

If you’re a male-line descendant of Adam Dielemann of New York, or know someone who might be, the DFA would like to hear from you. Contact the DNA project administrator at dnaprojectadmin@dillmanfamilyassociation.org to get connected and learn about testing.

This spotlight is drawn from the Dillman Family Association’s Family Group Sheet Database and written with the assistance of Claude, an AI assistant developed by Anthropic.