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Nathaniel Lightner married Magdalene "Maud" Leitner and had a large family, but we do not know what his wife's maiden name was or ancestry. This project is about finding that, using DNA to discover potential families.
While the Lightners eventually settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that was not where they landed in the New World. It is known that they stayed some time at Bohemia Manor, Cecil County, Maryland, along with several other Palatine immigrant families, including the Walborns and the Noeckers. Before that, it is possible they were on board the ill-fated 1709-1710 Palatine flotilla from England that landed in New York, but there is no written evidence that places them there, as far as I know.
The reason that this project has come up now is because I have found a section of DNA I share with several other people, all of whom seem to be descended from Palatine immigrants to New York aboard the 1709-1710 flotilla. I seemingly have no other connection with these persons. But it's a good chance that Maud's siblings and parents are listed among the ancestors of these DNA matches.
Work already done on the specific DNA overlap I found turned out to not have anything to do with Magdalena Lightner. Instead, I discovered the parentage of Michael Eberhard , because that stretch of DNA was provably Eberhard DNA, and the new DNA matches I analyzed linked the New York flotilla Eberhards with the Pennsylvania Eberhards. This too was valuable work and clearly of interest to many.
I am still in search of any chunk of DNA that might come from Magdalena Lightner, although this is not something that can be analyzed outside of the context of an individual DNA match. This project, therefore, has the first step of finding DNA matches that might have come via Magdalena Lightner which need tree building and analysis.
But while discovering that the original DNA overlap was Eberhard, I did stumble upon a related family from the flotilla: the Mauls. No idea whether these might be related to the Pennsylvania or South Carolina Mauls, but "Maud" as written might in fact be "Maul" - not out of question at all. I will leave it to others to decide if this is indeed plausible in any way, and only time will tell us if we can prove this (or disprove it) via DNA.
For now: Magdalene "Maud" Leitner . The name "Maud" may in fact have been "Maul" and nobody could read it properly. I've attached her to an appropriate Maul immigrant family, and updated her place of birth accordingly.