Though evolutionists routinely assume universal common descent of life, observational evidence militates against this unsubstantiated belief. In contrast, creationists recognize limited common descent where originally created kinds of organisms have reproduced to fill the earth. As they have done so, there has been considerable diversification and adaptation, though not enough to transmute them into a fundamentally different type of organism (e.g., from a rodent to a bat). Organisms that are not related by common descent can be recognized by significant holistic discontinuity between them. In this paper we begin an investigation of ruminants (Ruminantia), members of the order Artiodactyla, to determine if there is significant discontinuity between them and other species within this order. In this first paper, two molecular baraminology techniques were applied to available data to determine the relationship of ruminants to other artiodactyls. The results support the hypothesis that ruminants do not share common ancestry with other artiodactyls