At the moment, we have Ancestry DNA tested twenty German Sinti. The result of this sample was all  individuals were more Jewish than anything else. When you look at their core ancestry, they are  15% West Asian and 20% Mediterranean. Their ancestry included Ashkenazi Jewish, Sephardic Jewish, Moroccan Jewish, Georgian Jewish, Uzbeki Jewish, and Indian Jewish ancestry. (Benei Menashe, Bnai Israel, and Cochin Jewish.) 

A key point in their ancestry was this. Both had Canaanite and Levantine ancestors indicating ancient Jewish ancestry. All had ancestors buried in the 11th century Norwich, England Jewish Cemetery and the 12th Century Erfurt, Germany Jewish Cemetery indicating Medieval Jewish ancestry. And all have DNA matches who live as Jews in contemporary Israel.

This means their ancestors were living in Europe as Jews long before Gypsies "arrived" in Europe. More over, a significant part of the early Jewish community was largely created when Israelite men were brought to Rome as slaves and married Tuscan women. Both individuals showed high percentages of "Tuscan" ancestry which refers to the very early European Jewish community in Rome. 

This is only twenty people, but, we hope to test more German Sinti in the future and getting a better handle on the origins of the German Sinti. 

This is challenging because so many were murdered by the Nazis in the Porrajmos. But, some did survive the Reich and in time we hope to test the descendants of the survivors. 

In addition to this, I extracted a list of surnames from the "Zigeurnerbuch" which is a police report on Gypsies living in Germany in 1905. We are also extracting the names from the Auschwitz Memory book so we can provide people with a full list of German Gypsy surnames. The goal is to create a database of German Sinti surnames. 

One of the peculiarities of extracting the surnames of German Sinti from these historical sources is that they all carry names also carried by German Jews. When one looks at the genocide records, one will find Jewish Bamberger's and Gypsy Bamberger's both entering death camps at the same time. 

The Nazi's differentiated between German Sinti and "Balkan Roma". At the moment, we have only looked at German Sinti. We will add a "Balkan Roma" section as soon as we can. But, this group tended to have migrated to Germany from deeper Eastern Europe more recently whereas the German Sinti were in Germany for a longer period of time. 

First, here is a copy of the Zigeunerbuch. What follows is all the surnames found in the book. 

The German Sinti constitute one of Europe’s oldest Romani populations, with documented presence in German-speaking lands since the late Middle Ages. Distinct from later Roma groups that entered Europe via the Balkans, the Sinti belong to a western Romani branch whose ancestors settled in Central Europe by the fifteenth century. Over centuries, they developed a unique cultural identity shaped by long-term residence in the Holy Roman Empire and its successor states, sustained interaction with German, Jewish, and neighboring populations, and persistent marginalization by authorities.

Historical records place Sinti communities in southwestern Germany by the early 1400s, particularly in regions such as the Rhineland, Swabia, and Bavaria. Initially, some Sinti groups received safe-conduct letters from local rulers and were valued for specialized skills, including metalworking, animal handling, military support, and music.

This early tolerance was short-lived. By the sixteenth century, imperial edicts increasingly criminalized “Gypsies,” leading to expulsions, execution orders, and forced displacement. Despite these measures, Sinti families remained embedded in German territories, maintaining mobility while forming durable regional networks that extended into Alsace, Switzerland, Austria, and northern Italy.

Linguistically, Sinti Romani developed a strong Germanic overlay atop its Indo-Aryan grammatical core, reflecting centuries of integration into German-speaking environments.

From the early modern period onward, German Sinti occupied occupational niches common among western Romani populations: music and performance, horse trading, metal crafts, itinerant commerce, and seasonal labor. Many participated in fairground and traveling entertainment circuits, linking German towns with France and northern Italy. Sinti musicians became particularly influential, contributing to traditions that later crystallized into Gypsy jazz in neighboring regions.

Unlike Vlax Roma groups who arrived later from southeastern Europe, German Sinti experienced centuries of gradual European admixture, producing genetic profiles closer to Central European populations while retaining clear Romani founder ancestry.

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Modern genetic studies show German Sinti carry ancestry derived from Southern India , primarily Jewish India, combined with a variety of other Jewish ethnicities, with substantial Central European admixture acquired early in their European history. This reflects medieval integration into German-speaking populations, followed by centuries of relative endogamy. These profiles distinguish Sinti from later-arriving Balkan Roma. They are more closely related to the  Manouche populations in France and Sinti groups in northern Italy.