William Lee, II - DNA says there's a problem here

How current are the results? Is there any info from the project administrator?

Last updated: July 31, 2013 16:47:20 (taken directly from the chart page)

There are some general comments on the Links page http://leedna.com/links.php

The chart itself is a lot of fun - somebody set it up so that it can be sorted by "ID", "Descendants of", "Family Group", "Tested By", "Case No.", and "Haplogroup". The first three are by far the most useful.

They're still adding people from time to time - the most recent I could find was 7-12-2013 (one of the Nansemond Lees).

FTDNA also runs a Lee Y-DNA project, but it's nowhere near as well organized and isn't at all helpful (rather the reverse) re the Stratford Hall line.

I take it this William Lee is showing as parents unknown ?

Neither FTDNA nor the Surname Project list any Lees senior to him in his group. And he's certainly no male-line kin of Richard "the Immigrant" or any of his descendants.

I suspect a splice job - it's a powerful temptation, with a line as famous as that. Which doesn't get us any closer to finding out who his real parents were, unfortunately.

It's rather odd, but Richmond County is many miles northeast of the city of Richmond (which is an independent city in between Chesterfield and Henrico Counties. Go figure!

I assumed he was of Richmond county, wasn't the city much later

So - he's not an immigrant and his descendants don't match Stratford Hall Lees. Name change?

How many Lees tested total in this project?

Documentation thrumps DNA. And the Lee DNA project has many flaws.

As of the last updating, the DNA Surname Project had collected data on 358 tests. They have enough information to sort them into 23 family groups, but there are also a large number of isolated outliers that don't match up well enough with any of them. Occasionally two of the outliers match up, but apparently it takes three matching lines to be considered a "family group". (William Lee of Richmond County has 11 lines, which makes his a medium-sized group.)

"Lee" is actually quite a common name (along with its variants, "Lea", "Leigh", etc), and may have been chosen/acquired independently any number of times, by any number of families, related or not.

The assumption attaching William Lee of Richmond Co to the Stratford Hall Lees appears to come from a book called "From Log Cabins to White House", by a Mary Taylor Brewer (published 1985), which purports to be a study of President Zachary Taylor's ancestry. Unfortunately it seems that Ms. Taylor was of the Emma Siggins White school of genealogy and believed in linking as many families of the same name as possible, whether they belonged together or not. http://www.nltaylor.net/pdfs/Taylorgen.pdf (Nathaniel Lane Taylor, who assembled this essay, had stricter standards, and debunked her Taylor-related assertions in Chapter 1, "Bogus Origins".)

If she could be that wrong on the Taylors, can she be trusted on the Lees?

Jacqui: Ideally they should work together. When they are in opposition, something must give - and the problem often turns out to be in the documentation (or lack thereof).

If this were a case like the Plummers, with three or four lines yielding contradictory results, there might be room for doubt. But with *eleven* different lines from several different testing companies agreeing that closely - then, no. William Lee of Richmond County was R1b1a2 and very little doubt about it.

You would have to argue that the DNA results on the Stratford Hall line of Lees are bogus - and considering how little cooperation they have given thus far, I might listen to that. (All three Stratford lines were tested by Relative Genetics, which has since been bought up by Ancestry.com.) On the other hand there is as yet no reason to think they do *not* belong to haplogroup I1a - and you just don't find an R1b in an I1a family without a Non-Paternal Event of some type (be it bad documentation, or adoption formal or otherwise, or "the milkman", or whatever).

By the way, the reverse is also true, but much less often found - R1b is *extremely* common.

Maven - my name is "Jacqueli". And you might have intellectual arguements, but you are not being clear on sufficiant proof, and are speculating your opinion based on non-facts. There is alot mor to the proof and documentation than based on one researcher, and the DNA project has flaws. I am not even going to give your arguements creedance at this time, unless your can prove that the individuals tested and that the DNA tested against, WAS in fact a documented proven Lee descendant or ancestor. SO far, the project has been lacking in this being the case. I don't know what your real name is, as far as being a Lee researcher, it is a very complicated lineage - but you insult many Lee descendants by your non-descript generalization that more are not Lee's than those who are - that is VERY wrong for you to state. You are not an expert on nor should you speak on others behalf without knowledge of what or whom you are eliminating. The elitist attitude on the behalve of Lee family members is getting quite tiring and borish. And the arguements to take the focus off the truth and to confuse are getting old.

And ... I take a high offense on your attempt at "educating" me about the Lee surname. Not neccessary, really.

Ms. Finley, please realize that you are not the only other person discussing this matter on this forum. I was specifically replying to Erica Isabel Howton in response to questions from *her* - particularly her suggestion that there might have been a "name change".

It sounds as though you are trying to claim that there are NO verified Y-DNA tests on ANY bonafide descendants of Richard Lee I. That's a pretty extraordinary claim and really needs some evidence to back it up - other than just your say-so. Can you point me to some scientific articles supporting this assertion?

For the record, I am not a member of any Lee family, related to the Stratford Lees or otherwise. I got into this whole project through a back door - Mary Greenhow Lee, who was certainly not a Lee by birth (she was a Greenhow, from Richmond, and a most remarkable woman in her own right).

Her husband was Hugh Holmes Lee, of Winchester, VA, whose father was Judge Daniel Lee, of Woodstock and later Winchester. Judge Daniel Lee is NOT the same person as the Daniel Lee who went off to Ohio - even though they both coincidentally married women named Elizabeth Nicholson. (The Judge finished out his life in Winchester, and is buried there.)

I have not, thus far, been able to find evidence for *or* against a connection between the Winchester Lees and the Stratford Hall Lees. Complicating the matter is the detail that a bonafide Stratford Hall Lee - Theodoric - visited Winchester long enough to marry Catherine Hite, of the (German) Shenandoah Valley Hites, and take her back East with him. That was a good ten years or so (1790) before Judge Daniel Lee moved to Winchester(c. 1806) - it isn't clear whether their residence periods overlapped.

Also for the record, I have had my own go-rounds with documentation that turned out to be misleading and/or bogus (quite unrelated to the Lees of Virginia or any other state), so I am very skeptical of anything that isn't primary documentation, and even of some things that claim to be such (e.g. the heraldic Visitations).

Then perhaps you should refrain from your erroroneous statements about the Lee lineage and/or ancestor/descendants if you are not well versed. Not all documentation is bogus - but DNA is not abosolute, can be manipulated and is not considered a primary source. I only take primary sources as consideration, and care not only for myself as a Lee, but for all those who are Lee descendants and have been confused to nauseim about their true ancestry because of the errors of judgement and arguements that get thrown around. I have been researching the Lee family for decades and have gathered more documents and ruled out the bogus arguements for the sake of the true lines being recognized. William Lee was the son of Richard and Anne, was married to Alice Felton, did have a son William who married Dorothy Taylor. There is more than enough primary sources and legal paper triels that prove this. And of course, I wil come in defense and have every reason/right to add my statements to this "open" forum. Regardless of your not wishing me to do so. You will be very hard press to over come the validity of visitions and historical documentation. You have a right to your opinions, and that is all they are "opinions" - and as your statements show, anyone can say anything without substance. Back up claims such as discrediting historical documentation, please, with documentation that proves these valueble historic artifacts as visitation records are mis-leading or false, other than someones publication based on skeptisim. That is like calling the Magna Carter a false or forged document. It is just ridiculous unless your can give cause and effect to substantiate such claims. You sound like a reasonable intelligent individual, by your words, but documented proof bears witness, statements such as yours are mis-leading and bear false. If you are a true researcher, with credibility, simply come out of the closet and not hide behind a false name and avatar, or I will see you as just another Lee heckler witht the adgenda to confuse and discredit what has been proven/or being proven. Period. I take it to heart and have every reason to do so.

How about "mistaken identity"?

I've run into a bit of that in my own researches - not merely Daniel Lee of Winchester and Daniel Lee of Ohio, but also, in my own direct line, Josephus W. Waters of Anne Arundel (who stayed totally put) and his cousin Josephus Burton Waters of Frederick County, MD (who went traipsing off to Ohio, Kentucky, and points beyond). In both cases I found people with "proof" they were one and the same - and it took some serious research to get them disentangled. (There is still a lot of bad documentation out there.)

Is there *absolute certainty* that the William Lee who was the son of William Constable Lee is, or is not, the same person as the William Lee of Richmond County who tested R1b1a2 on eleven lines of descent? Or do we have another "Daniel Lee and Daniel Lee" situation? (Remember, they both married women with the *exact same name*....)

Yes - there is absolute proof that William Lee that married Alice Felton WAS the son of Richard Lee and Anne Constable. The DNA test is wrong.

If you ever need assistance on any of your Lee line and ancestors so that you do not meet up with confusion or bad information, you can always send me an email and I will verify/send you all the documents. Not a problem.

The identity of the William Lee who married Alice Felton is not the issue.

The question is, is the William Lee who died in Richmond County in 1717 the same person as the son of William and Alice? (Eleven lines of Y-DNA say he was another man with the same name.)

Unfortunately, *that* William Lee was not considerate enough to leave a will! What we have are some court rulings that his wife Dorothy provided an affidavit that he died intestate and that she was the administrator of his estate. No children are named, and no parents.

Dorothy's mother was apparently one Elizabeth Taylor of the same parish, who left a will on 11 May 1747 specifying various bequests to her, to her other surviving daughter (Sally Ellate), and to various grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It can be inferred from this that Dorothy and William had three(?) children, named as Tom, William, and (maybe) another Dorothy (who seems to have married another man named Lee, about whom absolutely nothing is said). Nothing, however, can be inferred from this document about the parentage of Dorothy's husband.

Dorothy herself does not seem to have left a will either.

Could I believe that William Lee, son of William Constable Lee and Alice Felton, grew up, married a woman named Dorothy (possibly even another Dorothy Taylor), and had children with similar names to the children of William Lee of Richmond and Dorothy Taylor Lee Croucher? Yes, I could - I've seen, and helped to disentangle, more than one example of that sort of thing.

Could I believe that later attempts to trace the various family lines got them muddled up? OH yes. I've seen that happen too.

Could I believe somebody, at some time, jamming the two Williams together when they should have remained separate? You betcha.

IMHO the Y-DNA test fingers the *other* William Lee - the one who *wasn't* the son of William and Alice. And it fingers him times eleven.

Actually ... there is a wonderful genealogist and respected historian that has been working on this exact issue, and I am happy to say she will be proven this William Lee, Jr, son of William and Alice, married Dorothy Taylor - and I believ you will find her new book very enlightening and I have enjoyed working with her on this project and problem area. :) Her name is Vicky Paulson, and hopefully she will eventually chime in here to your discussion for I have forwarded it to her. I really think too many people have confused many of the Lees with each other - and that is one of the biggest problems if you do not know how to navigate through all the bad stuff out there - so what you are fuming about is relatively old news and all the confusion and bad DNA will be blown out of the water soon.
And actually I have been publishing the correct information now for decades, it is all the arguements and confusing given names and the Lee surnames repeatedly over the years by others that has made it a hot mess. You still haven't given up to who you are, for I have come across most relevant Lee researchers over the years, but what you are posting here is not all that new, just more of the same, and some bits and peices of my own musing from posts and publishings. Here on geni merges seem to complicate identity more, when such nicknames as William from Richmond, and such makes it more of a hot soup. It is really unnecessary. All the documentation and points that you are posting can be viewed on my web and other genealogy sites that I have downloaded the same sources. So - I really don't know what point you are trying to make.?

William Lee, Jr died in Richmond, he was born Northhampton, Co., VA - later Surry, co.

I've come to the conclusion that there were two of him. One of them was definitely the son of William Constable Lee and Alice Felton - but unfortunately no one has yet captured his line in a Y-DNA test. (Something might come in tomorrow, or next month, or next year, or....)

The other William Lee was no relation at all, just happened to share a name, an approximate living span, and residence(s) in the same general area. But he's the one who left the male lines that got tested. (Drat!)

Considering any number of other examples I know of (Daniel Lee of Ohio and Daniel Lee of Winchester, Josephus W. Waters and Josephus Burton Waters, Thomas White of Somerset and Sir Thomas White, MP, of Swanborne/South Warnborough, Hampshire - they both married women named Agnes AND had sons named Thomas - and worse, both had fathers named Robert!), I find this quite plausible.

That last pair was by far the hardest to disentangle, as a self-declared "genealogist" had done a major demolition job on the yeoman Somerset line in an attempt to erase and replace it with the high-ranking Swanborne line. She almost got away with it...except that an ancestor of Thomas of Somerset had gotten into the Gascon Rolls (which she didn't know about or have access to), and that blew her pretty fiction sky-high.

Are you just coming to the conclusion now or reading this off the information we posted on his profile? My website?

Once again - the DNA TESTING HAS FLAWS and does not nor will not thrump the documents - there is enough documentation backing the right lineage attaching this line to Richard Lee and Anne Constable, and it has been done, long before your ponderings.

There were actually quite a few Williams as with most of those generations - I am NOT confused - I am sorry that you are. As I said, email me and I will give you the info - or better yet, read the profile and the "about me" overview - or visit my website, or any of the downloaded Ahnentafels and you can find this same info - That may help. There is also another discussion on this forum about this and has some good info and the same confusion as you have noted, I will try to find and post for you.

Captain William Lee, Esq.

Click on the above link "william Lee" and it will take you to the discussion.

That didn't quite work so here you go: http://www.geni.com/discussions/93673

Who the heck was that, that just dive-bombed the discussion???

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that there must have been two different William Lees on my own, after mulling over the discrepancies between the available documentation and the Y-DNA results. It seemed the only logical explanation.

Besides, I'd seen that type of situation before, as I was at pains to tell you. It's very confusing at first - *until* it gets sorted out. And what's usually at the root of it, I have found, is BAD NON-PRIMARY DOCUMENTATION. Somebody ASS-umes that A must be the same as B, and writes it down so, and other people pick up the garbage and spread it around, and later researchers have the devil's own time sorting out the mess.

Absolutely *nothing* trumps primary documentation: birth records, christening records, marriage records, land records, tax records, census records (when available), death records, wills, account books, letters, diaries, etc.

Y-DNA results are useful for sorting people into "family groups", but for finding out the exact degree of relationship it's back to the primary documentation again.

Well good for you - you finally caught up. Well at least you seem like you are doing your homework - good for you.

I have been a genealogist for over 35 years Maven, I know the difference between BS and documentation. Thank you.

Hey here's a good website for you maybe it can help you out ;) Sorry - it is late feeling a bit snarky.

http://www.leesofvirginia.org/

... and I do not know who that was who "divebombed" into the discussion. But these discussions are open to anyone - public - unless you make it a private one.

Sometimes I have to explain things to myself to be sure I understand what I'm talking about. :-D

That is okay - but putting all joking aside, you do think like a genalogist, or historian - you should collaborate more often. :) Even though somne of the things you are pondering have been sorted out, it always is good to have a fresh perspective. Email me anytime - like I said, I will be glad to help or discuss any genealogy issues you may come across that you might find perplexing.

"typos" - my bad.