I received an email from K.H., wife of C.H. She advised her husbands line traced back to Joseph Hays b. 1782 in New Jersey. C.H.’s R-BY96883 closely aligned with other Hays’ in Augusta County, VA. Her question was that his DNA doesn’t seem close to mine and was wondering if we are of the same family at all?
As she provided his Y deviations I compared them with mine and the first match was R-L151. My original search revealed that R-L151 occurred years ago and shows it originating in the Corded Ware Society of Western Europe 3000-3500 BC. Subsequently I found this site, https://indo-european.eu/2021/08/r1b-rich-earliest-corded-ware-a-yamnaya-related-vector-of-indo-european-languages/ with links to the original study it is reporting on, states that R-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males. It originated west of Bohemia near the Rhine River. For anyone looking to do a deep dive into their DNA I suggest this site, https://indo-european.eu.
“Greetings Cousin, a way back one,” is how I started my reply. It was a short 4 paragraph response outlining that we shared a common grandfather, a founder of our patrilineal line, about 3000 years ago (an error as it was 3000 BC) explaining the far split in the DNA. Testing at the Big-Y level on Family Tree DNA shows 11 deviations for me based on SNP’s tested. Using an estimate life span of 50 years there are 60 generations in 3000 years. Y-DNA Haplogroups are explained here, https://www.geni.com/projects/Y-DNA-haplogroups/3717#haplogroups.
The Corded Ware society was well established across Bohemia and the East European Forest Steppe area. The Corded Ware Era was, as was the following eras after it, a very violent time. DNA indicates migrations resulted in Y-DNA dispersal into local populations and it is believed that genocide of males in a conquered tribe allowed the Y-DNA of the conquerors to spread. This continued into the middle ages. It has been proposed that the R-U152 appeared in the Hallstatt Culture in the early Iron Age around 800 BC near the Italian Alps.
K.H was unsure if Joseph Hays from New Jersey was a Presbyterian but he moved with his parents to Washington County, PA in 1792. The only evidence to link C.H. and myself is a common spelling of our last name, a 5000 year old DNA match, and the century and location of migration to the America. It is the name and locations which provide the best indications. Joseph H. was born in NJ one year before the Revolutionary War ended. It is quite possible they relocated to N.J. due to the war, either to escape warfare on the settlement fronts or because Joseph’s father was fighting on the side of the Revolutionaries and brought his wife along for safety so as to not leave her alone (common practice).
Settlement in Washington County, PA would have been dangerous as that was the front line of settlements with the Indians at the time. Western PA was ceded to the U.S. (as part of the Northwest Territory) by the British but the Iroquois Federation didn’t ceed the land until 1784. In 1790 and 1791 the new US Government tried to take control of the NW Territory but lost 2 battles with the Miami, Wabash, and Shawnee Tribes who were not party of the treaty with the Iroquois and Americans. It wasn’t until The 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers that the Miami, etc. were forced to accept.
So Joseph’s parents may have settled on “the Irish Tract” in Roanoke with other Hays Presbyterians, or PA, and it was common for people to move back and forth between the state of PA, VA, and eastern TN based upon circumstances, If a Presbyterian Hays would have been able to read and write and generally the spelling of the name was not mixed, unless entered wrong by a clerk spelling phonetically and adding an “e” to it, Hays would be the surname of a working class Presbyterian Scot affiliated with a Lowland Clan Hay, possibly a cadet House. Now whether they came from Ulster or direct from Scotland is anybodies guess. But given the Northern Ireland had virtually whole congregations (and related Hays’) moving to the Americas on the same ship I think we have reasonable cause to believe that Joseph Hays’ parents came over from Northern Ireland.
I am honestly amazed that a very distant relative of 5000 years ago, in 3000 B.C the DNA splits, and he pops up with the same surname and experience in arriving in America. That means 2 brothers in the Corded Ware Era and then their children, and their children, and on, and on, for 60 to 100 generations travelled west in Europe on a similar path. My R-U152 (which C.H. doesn’t have) is suspected to have split at the Italian Alps with the Hallstatt Culture. As our DNA had split before it is unknown if C.H. travelled the same route (I’ll leave that for them to research, DNA information is coming online in droves these days). But the known facts are both our lines travelled from present day Poland, across the Alps, through Germany and France and over to Scotland where we both ended up affiliated with the same Clan Hay in lowland Scotland, and migrated to America in the 1700s as “Hays” settling in the same areas of the colonies.
Their line went from NJ and PA (DNA relatives in Roanoke) to Ohio (1802), Indiana, Missouri, then Oklahoma. My line went through PA, VA, TN (late 1700s), OK (late 1800s), TX, back to OK then Depression Era Grapes of Wrath to CA. And every Hays line that I have looked at arrived in America and went to the frontier (as it was known at that time), pioneer American’s. I’m glad now that I secured the AmericanMan.org web address, because every American Hays (so far as I have seen) with a DNA link, no matter how distant, is an American Man. I hope more people can put the story of their American Hays line down for future generations.
On the question, could me and C.H. be of the same family? Paternal surnames weren’t used until the 1400s and generally until the 1700s but certainly when queried what Clan ye be? we answered, “I’m with the Hay’s, the Hays spelling seeming (anecdotally) to me to be what is used by lowland working class Scots of the Clan Hay, the “Hays” surname they leaned to write in the 1500s and carried to Ulster and then America. Genealogy research says a common ancestor has to have both a surname link and a DNA link and we have that, albeit a long ago DNA link, but a link none the less. So I say, Greetings Cousins, a way back one, but cousins none the less.