Searching For The Wrights Of Oyster Bay Newspaper Article

Diane Wright, the fellow Wright family researcher from Australia who I’ve mentioned previously (https://stonefamilytree.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/wright-dna-testing-update-3), has accomplished a wonderful thing in getting the local Oyster Bay newspaper, the Enterprise Pilot, to publish an article on the search for a documented Oyster Bay descendant for DNA testing (http://www.antonnews.com/oysterbayenterprisepilot/news/36986-searching-for-the-wrights-of-oyster-bay.html).

Great work, Diane! This should provide plenty of exposure to the ongoing quest to verify the DNA signature of the Oyster Bay Wright family. Diane has been kind enough to give me permission to post a copy of what she submitted:

Searching For The Wrights Of Oyster Bay

Written by Diane E. Wright

Oyster Bay residents may be able to help solve a local mystery that spans centuries. One famous Revolutionary-era Oyster Bay resident is currently a dead end in genealogical research, but someone out there probably has DNA that would match, and tie together two loose ends of Oyster Bay history.

Much is known about the early history of Oyster Bay, such as how it was settled by a small group of Quaker families who came here from Cape Cod and how those families started a prosperous settlement which has thrived to this day. But in the Wright family, a connection has been lost between those early settlers and their descendants who spread far and wide across America in the succeeding years.

Today, genealogists are trying to put the pieces back together and to find out which Wrights are descended from the family of brothers Peter and Nicholas Wright of Oyster Bay; in some cases their search is rewarded with documentation, written in spidery handwriting and viewed on microfilm or online and in other cases, genealogists from times past have written up their family histories and documented their connection to Oyster Bay. However, not everyone is fortunate enough to find resources like this. This is where DNA testing comes in to fill in the gaps.

There are Wright families living today in Oyster Bay who are likely descended from the original Wright settlers. Those trying to make the connection would appreciate it if someone among them would assist family historians all over America by taking a Y-DNA test, and thus provide a benchmark result for the Oyster Bay Wrights.  The most accurate DNA test to follow a family name line is a Y-DNA test taken by a man who bears the surname. The Y-DNA from all men descended from the same family line will closely match no matter which branch of the family they are from or how many hundreds of years have passed since their ancestors were closely related.

The author of this article has taken up the challenge of solving the mystery of her family’s roots spurred on by the desire to share this with her nonagenarian father who has spent most of his life on the opposite shore of Long Island Sound  in Connecticut. After tracing her Wright line back to Captain Peter Wright (b. 1740 Hempstead, Long Island) she has reached what genealogists term a ‘brick wall’ where no further written documentation is known to exist. Captain Peter Wright is a well-known figure in American Revolutionary times and he is reported to have had as many as 16 children, although only 11 or so are documented. His descendants are many but his ancestry is unknown.

Circumstantial evidence points to his father being Joseph Wright of the Oyster Bay Wrights. Unfortunately, Joseph died before Peter was born, although Joseph’s will mentions that his wife is carrying a child. Was that child Captain Peter? This is where Y-DNA testing can help. A Y-67 DNA test has been taken by this author’s brother as the Y-DNA carrier of her branch of the Wright tree. The results are posted on the website of the Wright DNA Project http://www.wright-dna.org. Test 235938 in the bright pink section sits with other results, but none so far are from a documented Oyster Bay Wright descendant. So the search is on to find a direct male line descendant of Peter or Nicholas Wright of Oyster Bay who can trace his lineage. Such a tester will help to solve not just one but two genealogical mysteries, the second one being whether or not the Wrights who settled Oyster Bay and Flushing are related.

If there is someone among the Wright descendants interested in taking the test, please email dewrightct@gmail.com to discuss how to go about this. A swab of cheek cells is all that is needed to solve this mystery and the privacy of the tester is maintained during testing. Further information about genealogical DNA testing can be found here: http://www.dnaexplain.com/publications/pdfs/dnatestingforgenealogybasics5-19-09.pdf

The first direct paternal line tester to come forward with a verifiable line to the Oyster Bay Wrights will be eligible for a free DNA test.

More Stone DNA Test Results

DNA test results (kit 328319) from the descendant of George and Rheuhama (maiden surname unknown) Stone (http://www.danstone.info/g0/p303.htm) have come back and are now posted on the Stone Y-DNA Test Results page (http://www.danstone.info/stonedna.htm). Although the test results are just at the twelve marker level, the only two matches to this test in the Family Tree DNA database are the two Henry Stone descendants. They have already tested and matched at thirty-seven markers, making it extremely likely the George Stone who married Rheuhama is the son of my fourth great grandfather, Henry Stone (http://www.danstone.info/g0/p298.htm), who lived in Maidsville, Monongalia County, Virginia (now West Virginia). This is very helpful on a couple counts:

1) It shows the Henry Stone who is shown in Monongalia County deed book records as being conveyed land from Elizabeth Scott is indeed my ancestor, Henry Stone. This is demonstrated by the record on page 271 in Deed Book #19 Old Series, which lists an “indenture made February 3, 1849 between John Stone, Henry Stone [Jr.], George Stone and Rheuhama his wife, of the one part, and Joseph H. Scott of the other part, all of Monongalia County Va……….. Three sevenths of a tract of land……… being the same that was conveyed to Henry Stone by Elizabeth Scott………. being the interest or shares of said John Stone, Henry Scott [should be Stone rather than Scott] (Jr.), George Stone and Rheuhama his wife, in said tract of land as children and heirs of Henry Stone deceased.” There are three additional and similar transactions in the same deed book between the remainder of Henry Stone’s children (except Joseph Stone, who is said to have died in the War of 1812) and Joseph H. Scott. This information came from the supplemental documentation supplied with the Daughters of the American Revolution application of Sarah Love (Stone) Conn (http://www.danstone.info/g0/p329.htm).

2) It shows the derived thirty-seven marker Y-DNA signature of Henry Stone obtained from the two previous testers is very likely accurate, and is also fairly unique since there are so very few matches at even the twelve marker level. This is extremely helpful going forward in trying to discover the correct ancestral family of Henry Stone. There should not be a large number of false matches to have to sort through, and the family tree of anyone who does match should be investigate quite thoroughly as it very likely points to a common ancestor between our lines.

This leads me to start looking more closely at two families I find quite likely to be the ancestral families of Henry Stone. One being the Stone family of early Pendleton County, Virginia (now West Virginia). The other being the line of Philipp Stein of Udenkappeln, Palatine, Germany, who’s descendant, John Sebastian Stein (http://www.danstone.info/g3/p3453.htm), came to Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1748. In both of these families, some branches are believed to have eventually evolved the surname from Stein to Stone. Many previous researchers have believed these two lines are related to each other, or are part of the same line, but comparison of the signature/mark of Henry Stein (aka Henrich Stein) who accompanied Sebastian Stein on the Edinburgh in 1748 to the signature of Johann Henrich Stein who arrived on the Edinburgh in 1751 (http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=1870&p=localities.northam.usa.states.westvirginia.counties.pendleton), seems to show that at least two men named Henry/Henrich Stein arrived in early Pennsylvania at somewhat similar timeframes. Hopefully, DNA comparisons will help sort this out, so I’m searching for descendants of both lines for testing. A previous test of a descendant of the Philipp Stein line (kit UG8HR) seems to show my Stone line is not closely related, but a comparison with a second descendant should be done to confirm the result. If any direct paternal line descendants of either of these lines have tested, or are interested in testing, please contact me.