Three descendants of David Lee are of haplogroup I1 and are grouped under Randaulph Lee in the Lee DNA Genealogy Project at ancestry.com
Two of the descendants of David Lee have a genetic distance of 1 from a descendant of Samuel Leigh who is believed to have the same Y-DNA marker values as Ralph Leigh. One of these descendants came from a line through a son of David Lee, David Lee Jr. (his mark is "H"). The other descendant came through a son of David Lee, Abraham Lee.
The third descendant of David Lee also came through the line of David Lee Jr. (his mark is "H") but through a different son of David Lee Jr. This descendant has a genetic distance of 2 from the descendant of Samuel Leigh.
All three descendants of David Lee have a mutation (relative to the descendant of Samuel Leigh) in DIS YGAT10. This implies that David Lee himself probably had that mutation. The descendant of David Lee who has the genetic distance of 2 had an additional mutation in DIS 461. That mutation probably occurred sometime later.
The three descendants of David Lee were tested for 43 markers. The descendant of Samuel Leigh was tested by Ancestry for 43 markers and by FamilyTree for 67 markers.
The genetic distances of 2 and 3 are close relationships and indicates there is likely a common ancestor for the three Lee donors and the Leigh donor within a genealogical time frame from the donors. However, David Lee lived in the United States while Ralph Leigh was likely born in England and lived most of his life in Wales. Information about the male relative of David Lee who immigrated to the United States is unknown at this time.
The Possible Immigrants page of the Welsh Leigh site that documents Ralph Leigh lists 21 places in the Leigh Descendancy Chart where side lines could have furnished immigrants to the United States. In addition, the sidelines could have been created prior to the birth of Ralph Leigh.
A grandson of this David Lee left his memories of what he had been told about the family. He, of course, could have remembered wrong or could have been told wrong; but ~~ he thought that the Father of David Lee was born in America in 1719. He remembered the Father's name as Ferney Lee or Arthur Ferney Lee.
ReplyDeleteIF Ferney Lee was born in America, that places his Father in America as a man old enough to have children in 1719 - we can GUESS the Father of Ferney Lee to have been born before, or around, 1700 if this is true.
That would mean that our connection with Samuel Leigh would have to go back before the Rev. Edmund Leigh whom you say was born in 1736.
Thank you for your Web site - I will continue to try to understand as I read. A question - your Samuel Leigh matches our Lee lines - does Samuel also match the Leigh lines that have been tested? Does that mean that the Lees who have been tested also match the Leigh lines? Making the original name Leigh?
Elizabeth
Hi Elizabeth, Thanks for visiting the site and leaving some names and potential dates for your ancestors.
ReplyDeleteThere are three descendants of David Lee who have had their Y-DNA tested. Which descendant fits in with your family?
I think your estimate that the grandfather of David Lee (father of Ferney Lee) was born around 1700 or before is likely a good estimate. The Possible Immigrants page of my Leigh web site lists 11 places where possible sidelines to my direct line to Ralph Leigh could have begun, prior to 1700. Because of the small genetic distances involved (1 and 2), it is probably likely that the immigrations came from Wales, but it is possible that the immigrations could have come from England. Those 11 potential sidelines give your family good starting points to research immigration records for Lee or Leigh men.
Concerning the two names, Lee and Leigh. Both are pronounced "lee", and both refer to a meadow or a clearing. Possibly implying that the persons who took Lee or Leigh as surnames lived on farms. Surnames were adopted in the UK around the 15th century, and it is possible that some men in a family adopted one spelling while other men in that family adopted the other spelling. In fact, some of the immigration records pertaining to my great grandfather, Samuel Leigh, list him as Samuel Lee. Through Y-DNA testing, we know that both spellings can pertain to the same genetic family.
Elizabeth, I missed one of your questions. You asked if my Leigh line matched other Leigh lines. In general, no. Most of the Leigh lines in the UK seem to be of a haplogroup RB1. My Leigh line is I1. This explains why this site is for Leigh & Lee lines of haplogroup I. The Rb1 folks aren't related to the I1 folks (unless you go back 10s of thousands of years to the early migrations out of Africa).
ReplyDeleteThere are other Leigh lines listed in this site (of haplogroup I1), but they don't compare with the markers of my Leigh line. This illustrates that the haplogroup of I1 is a broad collection of families that usually don't have a relationship with each other.
Allen, you asked which descendant of David fits in with my family line. My line is through David Lee, Jr. through his son William G. Lee and through Isaac Lee through his daughter Eleanor who married William G. Lee. The sons of David Lee were: David, Jr. and by 2nd wife: Abraham, Isaac, Leban.
ReplyDeleteIt is generally accepted by researchers that the Father of David Lee's father was Richard Lee who left a will in Edgecombe Co., NC, in 1756. He did name a son Arthur Lee but research on this Arthur does not fit, in my poor opinion.