1. Hey Bro, we’re cousins.
A close family friend (so close we call each other Brother) contacted me with the news that we are cousins (by marriage). It turns out his wife was doing genealogical research and was reviewing 5th to 8th cousins on Ancestry.com when she came across my photo (Ancestry offers autosomal DNA and matches members with their possible cousins). We shared a 4th Great Grandfather on my fathers maternal line, Joseph Price 1769-1834. I’m sure I’ll be introduced as “BroCus” at any gatherings as an opening to discussing genealogy research in the family. It’s a small world after all.
This got me to thinking about how American was I? So I went back to my own family tree using the maternal name that married into my Hays line following their paternal lines. Peoples trees on Ancestry trace my Grandmothers Price line back to Daniel Price born 1725 in Henrico, VA. Price is a welsh name and is the 91st most common name (out of 100) in the US (2020). Great Grandmother Mary Ellen Wilcox married Alexander Hays in TX and her line traces back to George Wilcox born 1718 in VA. Wilcox is Scottish or English in origin, from medieval English. By the time America was settled most surnames had been Anglicised (even Irish and Scottish Gaelic names).
My 2nd Great Grandmother Harriet Atwood Walker married William A. Hays in Greene, TN and her line traces back to Thomas Walker born 1650 in Westmoreland, VA. Walker, like Wilcox is the Anglicised form from Scotland or England. 3rd Great Grandmother Sarah W. Rodgers (b. 1808) married George Hays in Greene, TN and her line goes back to one generation to Robert Rodgers with no information available. Rodgers is also Anglicised English or Scottish, this spelling variation more common in Scotland. 4th Great Grandmother Abigail Cravens married William Hays in either Rockbridge, VA or Greene, TN. It traces back to Robert Cravens born 1733 in Lewes, Sussex Co., DE. Cravens is of English origin. From William A. Hays back my Hays line were Presbyterian and appear to be active in church so it is safe to assume the spouses were also Presbyterian and most likely their families Presbyterian migrants from Ulster, Scotland, or England settling in proximity to my hays line (eventually).
You can follow our diaspora of Hays pioneers as Ancestry has an interactive map based on the census which shows in 1840 NY, PA, OH, and TN led the country with between 114-226 Hays family names with OH 1st which had 226 Hays’ which was 14% of us in the US. The name shows in all the settled areas of the U.S. that time. By 1920 PA, OH, IN, IL, MO, KY, TN, GA, AL, MS, AR, OK, and TX all had between 301-600 Hays families but every state in the U.S. had Hays families in it. There were 600 Hays families in #1 KY, 7% of all the recorded Hays in the country. States around this cluster and CA, OR, and WA came in second 101-300, the midwest and New England coming in last at 1-100. The 2010 census has “Hays” name ranked at 1021 with 34,191 records (Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, and Brown are the top 5) and out of each 100,000 people we are 11.59% of the population. Hayes is in 127th place and Hay ranks 2005 and it is unknown how many of these are Ulster Scot Presbyterian with a changed spelling (See Hays spellings).
It was my father who broke the line of Hays men marrying women with pre-Revolutionary War Colonial roots. But this was understandable as it was his generation which finalized the Hays’ generational moves west when he landed in CA with the other “Oakies” in the 1930’s. Like many other Hays’ he ran out of land to continue migrating west. (although service in the Pacific theatre in WWII, Korea [war and after], and Vietnam leave the possibility the DNA continued to migrate west?). Military service brought him back east to NY where he married my mother, a 3rd generation German immigrant to this state on her paternal line, 2nd on her maternal her mother arriving as a baby, settling in VT and upstate NY. Some of his children and grand children stayed in NY and as is the custom in America now some moved about the country following adventure, a spouse, or work.
Note on name as ancestry alone. The 2010 census shows about 70% of U.S.A. “Hayes” identifying as White – non hispanic, 85% of Hay, and 91% of Hays ruling out many as immigrants from Scotland to Ulster to America excepting acknowledged intermarriage. Also the spelling of Hays was historically phonetic, especially in those who could not write (pre-Presbyterian education in the peasant class in Great Britain prior to 1600 and in rural America west of the Mississippi – both my Grandfather and Great Grandfather for example) and so they made their mark and another spelled based upon how it sounded. proper genealogy research requires name matching (including similar spelling), DNA, religion, and other historical records matching. Don’t cheap out, do the research.
2. Chickasaw Nation
RS contacted me after finding the AmericanMan web site. His mother was a Hays and he traced her line back to Patrick Hays in PA and he’s actually been to the gravesite in Derry, PA (on my bucket list). He’s a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation (fathers side) and also a member of the Love County Historical Society and so I got a lot of information on Burneyville, Love, OK. which is where my Great Grandfather, Robert Alexander Hays migrated to with his wife Mary. Robert Alexander is buried in the Burneyville Cemetery. I have no information on why they migrated to Chickasaw Territory to farm. The 1900 census shows Township 7, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory with Mary as the head of household with 8 children, widowed the year prior. I addressed the question of Indian ancestry but will need to do site investigations to see why the couple, he from Green, TN and she from Equality, Miller, MO. and who were married in TX, settled in OK.
The 1910 census shows Mary as head of household with my Grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Hays 18, and 3 younger sisters in Hickory, Love, OK. By 1920 my Grandfather was listed as head of household, married with a one year old child and Mary and his sister, Lula R. 24 residing in Justice Precinct 5 Cooke, TX. Thomas J. had children born in order; Illinois Bend, Montague, TX; Plainview , Hale, TX, Illinois Bend, Montague, TX; Plainview, Hale, TX; and Cyril, OK, the last being my father who was a baby when his father died. The 1930 census shows my fathers family in Olton, Lamb, TX and in 1940 he was in Plainview, TX again but some time in between he lived with his uncle Jess Price in Chandler, Commanche, OK.
RS advised that the Burneyville Cemetery is quite large but Burneyville itself is almost a ghost town. The Love County Historical Society is in the Pioneer Museum in Marietta, OK (Love County seat). It’s run by volunteers so hopefully it’s still open when the lockdowns are lifted as I would greatly like to visit it and do research. His parents met in TX so the connection of Hays to Burneyville was of interest to him. I’ll check and see if he has his Hays family tree and if he’ll share it and approves its posting on this site.
Calgary, Canada
MT in Calgary, Canada contacted me after reviewing AmericanMan.org. He’s an R1a (our Hays are R1B) but he has many Hays in his lineage and was wondering if I came across any R1a Hays’ in my searches for the name which I haven’t. R1 split into R1a and R1b around the last ice age. My Hays line is R1b1a2 with the R-M269 marker which is the most common marker from Europe and dominated in the Yamnaya Culture 3500 BCE. It also includes R-M343 which migrated from Kazakstan across Unkraine, Romania, the Italian Alps and into France. The R1 (R-M420) migrated from Kazakstan into Russia and then Belarus. The Hay and Hayes DNA Projects reveals not only R1’s with a Hay derived name but many others, although the bulk of Hays’, over 75% of the 275 in the Hay project, appear to be R1b and most of them with the R-M269 marker.
Note: We concurred that the education of people in North America is greatly lacking. Not only are American’s taught virtually NOTHING about Canadian History and Canadians taught virtually NOTHING about U.S History, neither country properly teaches their own history which we discovered in our genealogy research. I’ll add to this the history of Mexico and the U.S. I suggest everyone get on internetrchive.com and download history books, now public domain and many digitalized or available for a digitalized free borrow from a library from written in the time you are researching or shortly thereafter. And remember to send them a tax deductible donation as they are in INVALUABLE resource to truth and history.