Every male Y chromosome tells a story. So I ran a Y-DNA match test that compares my Y chromosome with hundreds of thousands of others. Using FamilyTreeDNA and GeneBase, I started to piece together my paternal line. I expected to match with lots of Hays or Hayes names. Turns out, I matched with very few. Most of the other “Hayes” samples were not even close—likely descendants of the Scottish Clan Hay, which we’re not a part of after all.
To figure out where my ancestors came from, I learned how DNA mutations map human migration. Haplogroups are like the major branches of the Homo sapiens family tree. Each branch represents early migrations tied to geography. The haplotypes are the individual leaves on those branches. A Y-DNA haplogroup is basically everyone who shares a single SNP mutation from a common male ancestor, often going back thousands of years. These SNP mutations are stable over time, which makes them ideal markers.
The story starts about 100,000 years ago with what’s called “Y-Chromosomal Adam”—the most recent common male ancestor of all men alive today. He likely lived in East Africa, and all men today descend from him through one of the branches of the Y-DNA tree. There are around 19 major haplogroups labeled A through R, and each one has its own sub-branches. Our family falls under Haplogroup R1a, and more specifically the R1a1a-M198 lineage.
R1a1a is found most frequently in Eastern Europe—among Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and Balts. It’s also seen in significant numbers in Scandinavia, particularly in Norway and Iceland, where 20–30% of men carry this haplogroup. There’s even a trace presence in the British Isles, likely brought by Viking or Norman invaders. Some Hungarians also show this haplogroup, which ties in to historical movements across Central and Eastern Europe.
While R1a is far less common in Western Europe, certain subclades—like mine—do show up in Britain and Ireland. These may have arrived through Norwegian settlers or the Norman invasion of 1066. Many of the Norman forces were Viking descendants who had settled in northern France. This might explain how our line ended up in the Isles without being part of the original Scottish Hay clan.
One marker in particular—DYS388=10—helps pinpoint our branch. Dr. Anatole Klyosov, a Harvard-affiliated researcher and one of the leading experts on the R1a haplogroup, reviewed my results and placed me near a branch known as the “Young Tenths.” This line traces back to a common ancestor around the 8th century AD. But based on my mutations, my branch split off even earlier—around the beginning of the Common Era.
According to Klyosov, my line diverged from the Young Tenths about 2,000 years ago. So while there may have been Viking or Norman connections later, the deeper story is older. It likely starts farther east—with the early Indo-European tribes that came out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe region. Call them Scythians, Sarmatians, proto-Slavs, or proto-Rus—they were the people moving westward from what’s now Ukraine, southern Russia, and beyond.
The deeper ancestry isn’t Celtic or Anglo-Saxon. It’s eastern. Our paternal line likely originated on the Eurasian steppe and gradually made its way west. The Hays surname was probably adopted much later, possibly in Ireland or England. But our Y-DNA points to a long migration that began with early horse-riding cultures and Indo-European tribes thousands of years ago.
