I was researching my Day Family ancestors when I found the results of the Day Family yDNA study posted online. The yDNA genetic test is for men that have the Day surname but it is also relevant for women with Day ancestors. It is in addition a fascinating case study on the use of DNA testing to determine various lines of the Day family name. Kudos to those involved in this intriguing genealogy and DNA study. The DNA clearly shows quite a few distinct Day family lines and branches as shown by color coding. To see the study results go to
HTTP://dayfamilies.com/ and then hit the link at the top of the explanatory page. In addition, it revealed that the Day family that migrated from NC to SC and then to Alabama has split into two branches. The Thurmond line, which I think includes longtime Senator Strom Thurmond, is part of the Day families yDNA study.
DNA tests are most valuable when accompanied by genealogy work. In my case, I spent an hour poring over the family tree that accompanied my specific Day Family line, 31282, Hoyt, Edw., but I cannot find the direct lineage back to the Day Revolutionary patriot to which I am supposed to be related, William Day who married Rutha Pierce or Frances Lang with there being another wife also listed on the family tree. DAR thinks that William Day had three wives but I only see two on the family tree. If I understand the tree, Rutha Pierce and William Day had a grand daughter named Frances. Based on now discarded family custom for girl names, that would suggest that Rutha's full name was Rutha Frances Pierce and that she went by the names Rutha and Frances. Maybe that is why the DAR website says an error has been discovered in the original genealogy for William Day that may show that lineage documents previously accepted by the DAR are incorrect.
I was going to submit genealogy to join the DAR but the genealogy tree for the Day family from Edgecombe, NC, to Edge field, SC and then to Dallas and Loundes Counties, Alabama doesn't bear much semblance to the family trees that are being posted on Ancestry.com. I found my great grandmother Ada Lee Hobby (1870-1929) who married married Thomas Day (1867-1960) but I cannot find the direct line connection going back to William Day Sr. The list of children from the marriage of Ada Lee Hobby and Thomas Day is incomplete, but I am assuming that it was a human error, as two of their daughters are fused into one person. In my case, this is not academic as my uncle knew all of the children quite well, and his mother and my grandmother Elva Selene Day Shipman is missing from the family tree that goes with 31282. Hoyt, Edw.
For anybody interested in the Day families and/or the fusion of genealogy and DNA family studies, this study looks like a textbook example of how people with the same surname may be closely or distantly or not at all related. I did not click on all of the live links, as I called my uncle in alarm over our missing and very recent ancestor Elva Selene Day!
If anybody sees the direct lineage that was supposed to go from Ada Lee Hobby and Thomas Day to Charlotte Pace Lee and James Crook Hobby to Martha Day and Martin Lee to William Day and Rutha Pierce, please let me know. Maybe I am failing to understand the tree, which does show three husbands for Charlotte Pace Lee, as I discovered while trying to put together an "accurate" family tree. If anybody wants to know why Family Tree only shows one husband for Charlotte, please write me privately. It is a family matter with roots in a pre-Internet era that could not conceive of the access we now have to a vast bank of historical information and to expansive worldwide connections with people that provide can insights. In this case, though, my own uncle that lives several miles away explained why Charlotte Pace Lee, his great grandmother, is shown as having one husband on some trees.
