I still don’t know where Nicholas Hays was born or who his parents were, but I’ve been able to answer some big questions about our deeper ancestry. One thing’s clear: we are not descended from the Scottish Hay Clan founded by William de la Haye. Our Hays line likely adopted the surname sometime in the 1500s, maybe as early as the 1400s, and probably moved from England to Ireland during that time.
Our family isn’t Catholic, and most of the Hays cousins I’ve connected with aren’t either. That leads me to believe our ancestors were Protestant and may have left England during the Reformation—possibly fleeing religious persecution during the reign of King Henry VIII, around the time the Church of England was established in the 1540s.
Before that, it’s likely our ancestors arrived in England with Norse settlers during the 11th century. And further back, before the Scandinavian roots, our Y-DNA points to a much older origin—steppe nomads from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We’re talking Scythians, Sarmatians, early Slavs, and the Kurgan cultures that helped shape early Indo-European history.
As more people test and more records come online, I’m hopeful we’ll eventually find the birth location and parents of Nicholas. But for now, I can confidently say our heritage is a mix of American, Irish, English, Slavic, and Steppe ancestry. It’s been a long journey to get here—and it’s far from over.
