What we know is our diaspora is from the Copper Age to the Hallstatt Culture in the Italian Alps 1200 BCE and then from Northern Ireland in the 1600s CE to the Americas, PA and VA, in the early 1700s. What we don’t know is how we migrated from the Italian Alps 1200 BCE into Western Europe and then on into the Scottish Lowlands. As follows is review of the current DNA (sources as of April 2026), the known roots of the PA/VA Patrick/John Hays families, and theories on the migration to Scotland. The estimated DNA location are from Globetrekker on my FTDNA Big Y site. I start at R but the line goes well back of that and includes Neanderthal DNA 300,000 YBP and originates in Africa and travels though the middle east, Iran, India, China, Indochina, north through China to eastern Mongolia arriving 30,000 BCE before turning westward across the Steppe.
My, John, and Patrick Hays Y-DNA line. R, R1, R1b, M207, M173, M343, L754, L151, P312, ZZ11, U152, L2, DF103, FGC4166, BY1020, BY3510, BY43400, BY60752, FT115175, FT116590.
(Note- I use “formed” for ease of typing to explain the chance mutations to a haplogroup that occurred on the Y-DNA of our ancestors. A haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single-nucleotide polymorphism mutation).
R formed 26,000 BCE in Mongolia. R1 formed 20,000 BCE Kazakhstan. R1b formed 17,000 BCE in Uzbekistan and R-L754 just west 17,000 BCE. R-L389 formed 15,000 BCE north of the Caspian Sea in present day Georgia. R-P297 formed 13,000 BCE just north of last. R-M269 formed 4450 BCE in present day Russia north of and between the Caspian and Black Seas. R-L23 formed 4350 BCE in western Ukraine and R-L51 formed just west of R-L23 4100 BCE in central Ukraine. We travelled west through Poland and into present day Slovakia where R-P310 formed 3400 BCE. We continued west through Austria and northwest into Germany forming R-L151 3050 BCE. We travelled directly south into the Swabian Alps and formed R-P312 2900 BCE. We made a large bend first northwest then south west forming R-ZZ11 2800 BCE near Haute-Savoi, France. We travelled south to the Mediterranean Sea and followed the coast back east to just north of Pisa, Italy where R-U152 formed 2650 BCE.
We retraced our steps back past R-ZZ11 to Basel, Switzerland where R-L2 formed 2650 BCE. We migrated south where R-DF103 formed 2550 BCE. Back north again we find R-BY1020 forming 2050 BCE south of Rhin, France. R-BY3510 formed 1800 BCE just northwest of Rhin France. Traveling north R-BY43400 formed 1500 BCE just north of Luxembourg. We went north and west where R-BY60752 formed in Flanders, Belgium 1000 BCE. The map shows migration from Calais, France to Kent, England following the east coast of England and Scotland to East Lothian, Scotland and west through Glasgow, Scotland crossing the Firth of Clyde into Northern Ireland where R-FT116590 formed 1700 CE.
While we can generally match our lineage to ancient civilizations from the Yamnaya 3300-2600 BCE covering the Pontic-Caspian Steppe including north of the Black sea to the Bell Beakers 2800-1800 BCE covering all of western Europe to the Hallstatt Culture 1200-450 BCE the record of DNA and classification of cultures is just an estimate for the times they covered. We are also hindered in our DNA evidence where large gaps occur between a change in the line which occurs with our line where the gap between our known North Ireland DNA at 1700 CE and our Flanders, Belgium DNA at 1000 BCE are 2700 years apart and thus provide no clue to the migration from Europe to Great Britain, specifically Scotland and then northern Ireland which we can surmise due to the Presbyterian Religion they brought to America consistent with the diaspora of Presbyterians and John Hays and Patrick Hays written references to leaving Northern Ireland for America. .
The Haplogroups R* , Paleolithic mammoth hunters, originated in North Asia before the last glacial maximum (29,000-19,000 YBP) and split into R1b in Western Europe, R1a in Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia and R2 into South Asia. Our R1b line is the most common Haplogroups in Western Europe (80% of the population of Ireland, Scottish Highlands, and western Wales, and the Atlantic fringe of France, and 70% of the Po Valley in North-Central Italy).
(M207, M173) M343 branched during the Paleolithic Period and into (L754, L389) P297 branched during the Neolithic Period in the Caucuses between the Black and Caspian Seas. Taurine Cattle were domesticated in the Taurus Mountains (present day Turkey) and P297 is associated with this and the domestication of horses around 4600 BCE as their use spread across the Steppe.
Our Y-DNA line branched into M-269 and nomadic herders of cattle in the Caucuses during the Copper Age. The North Caucuses and the Pontic-Caspian Steppe are classified during this time as the Proto-Indo-European homeland. The R1b, M269 spread westward (Southern Yamaha Culture) with many theories on how it subsumed the existing populations of Western Europe most likely related to superior weapons and resources (cattle, lactose tolerance, horses, and copper and bronze weapons for example.
We then migrated onto the Pontic Steppe, perhaps as part of the Dnieper-Donets Culture around 5100-4300 BCE. The Y-DNA split into the L23 Branch at the turn of the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog Periods, 4500 BCE. 99% of Indo-European descends from this L23 subclass. L51 split from L23 in East/Southeast Europe on the Eastern and Northern Black Sea as we continued our migration west into Central Europe and by 2500 BCE were in Hungary/Austria/Bohemia. It split into P310 which further split into the Proto-Italo-Celtic-Germanic branch P312 and eventually (Z40481, ZZ11) into U152. 1300 BCE U152 migrated into Switzerland, Southern Germany and Alsace France and eventually successive migrations into the Italian Alps from the north creating a Celtic Culture (Urnfeld, Hallstatt 1200 BCE, and La Teen 450 BCE our line being the L2 clade. L2 split into DF103 and then FGC4166 about 2500-2000 BCE located in Italy, Germany, and the UK/Ireland. For further see Haplogroup R1b by Maciamo Hay.
My FTDNA Y-DNA Time Tree shows R-DF103 at 2560 BCE, FGC4166 at 2169 BCE, BY1020 at 2037 BCE, BY3510 at 1783 BCE, BY43400 at 1488 BCE, BY60752 at 981 BCE, FT115175 at 1500 CE, FT116590 at 1719 CE, FT116536 at 1763 CE, and a split off that line of FT117825 at 1943.
FT115175 shows one tested with that clade. FT116590 shows 2 tested with that clade (one being me). FT116536 shows 2 tested with that clade. FT117825 shows 2 tested with that clade.
We know that John Hays and family self imported to Augusta, VA in 1740 (with a Patrick Hays family also self importing) and that a Patrick Hays and family settled in Derry, PA in 1728 from Donegal, Ireland. Using genealogy research from various Hays ancestors we determined that Patrick Hays (PA) was related to John Hays (VA) which was confirmed by DNA which showed that Patrick Hays (as his ancestors are) was R-FT116536 and John Hays (as his ancestors are) R-FT116590. The split time estimates are plus/minus mean estimates, 68% at 150 years on date given. It is quite possible given the timelines that Patrick Hays’ father was John Hays brother as any DNA split before that would have altered John Hays DNA also.
Our earliest records of Patrick Hays show he was born 1705 in Donnegal, Ireland and came to PA with his brothers Hugh, William, and James about 1728. John Hays self imported to Rockbridge, VA with his family in 1740 from Bangor, Ireland. Both families were Presbyterians. Given the history of Scotland, England, and the settlement of Northern Ireland at that time it is reasonable to assume that the Hays migrated to N. Ireland from Scotland. Hays is a sept of Clan Hay, a lowland Clan with the Clan Chief being the Earl of Erroll. In addition to land holdings of the Earl at Aberdeen there were several cadet houses in Perth, Shetland and the Scottish Borders.
Bangor, N. Ireland is in County Down and would have been a part of the Ayrshire Scots James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery Plantations in Counties Down and Antrim as part of a land scheme with the Irish Con O’Neill who had been imprisoned and sold them first part then all of his land holdings to obtain freedom. This part of Ireland sits a mere 12 miles from Scotland (visible on a good day) and attracted thousands of lowland Scots in 1607 and it is quite possible that John Hays ancestor was one of the original settlers there. The Plantation of the other Northern Ireland counties was commenced by King James about 1610 as a result of the success of the Hamilton-Montgomery ventures.
Patrick Hays came from Donegal, Ireland which is on the west coast of the island. Born there we can surmise that his father had settled there under King James settlement plans post 1610. The migrations from N. Ireland to America were primarily by locality and church members. While the rents for land were low at plantation due to the lands having been decimated during the 3 countries wars, by the 1700s the rents were increasing. The settlements in the Americas lacked labor and thus many were induced to make the arduous journey as the reward, depending on how the trip was paid for and the area settled, resulted eventually in the ownership of land.
The diaspora of the Hays in America to be discussed in future blogs.
What we don’t know: From Italian Alps to Scotland
As Clan Hay is an Anglo-Norman Clan, delaHaye from the French Vikings of Normandy, it has been speculated that my Hays line came to Scotland during the Norman invasion. But the Clan Hay Genetic Genealogy and DNA of the Hay, Hays, and Hayes of Scotland shows the Norman royalty line to be R1a. This is consistent as the R* line had a similar diaspora with R1a migrating more northerly across Europe and R1b migrating more southerly across Europe but with both groups intermingling as they moved about. the R1a more predominant in Scandinavian Countries. Sorry if you are a R1b and wished to find royal blood in your ancestry as recently it is a no.
It is possible my R1b line migrated to the French coast and was absorbed into the Normans Clan then migrated to Scotland with the R1a but I expect that is a lesser possibility. And early migrations into Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland seem to be the R1b-U152, L21 branch to reach France by 2200 BCE and Britain 2100 BCE and Ireland by 2000 BCE bringing the Bronze Age to Ireland. My Celtic La Tene ancestors split from them being R1b, U152, L2. With the R1a migrating west to the north and the R1b L21 to the south it is not hard to imagine the westward migration of the R1b L2 was in between to the coast somewhere from Denmark to Germany to the Netherlands. If so my formerly Celtic Tribe now morphed into a Germanic one could easily have migrated to Northumbria with the 5th century Anglo “invasion.”
Interestingly the FTDNA line which has us in Flanders, Belgium is near the Frisians, a Germanic Tribe from the Zeeland Islands and Antwerp northeast adjoining the lands of the Saxons. Many Frisians migrated to England with the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons about 400 CE
As my focus is on the Hays American Man Branch I’ll have to live with the speculation of the ancestral travels from the Alps to Scotland unless and until another does the research. The American Branch of the Hays participation in American History providing more than enough research into questions which pop into my head in regard to my American ancestors and their what and why.
David K. Faux has presented 3 theories on the migration of the Haplogroup U152 into Britain. Hypothesis A explores introduction through Denmark and the Danish Vikings, hypothesis B investigates the Anglo-Saxon migrations in the 5th century, and hypothesis C is the Belgae Tribe as a source, the common denominator in all 3 hypothesis being migrations from the La Tene Culture.
Maciamo Hay provides a “Genetic History of the British and Irish people” here, with no definitive answer. https://www.academia.edu/10120872/Genetic_history_of_the_British_and_the_Irish_people?email_work_card=interaction-paper
With no definitive explanation we await further research and expect the lack of written records for this tie period has us relying on DNA and archeology to provide further evidence.