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Thomas Daniels from England to America 1774

Tracing the ancestry of my great-grandfather, Percy Henry Daniels, has been quite a challenge. Fortunately my grandmother knew he was born in Olympia, Washington, because I never would have guessed I had ancestors from the west. Nearly all my ancestors arrived in the Colonies during Pilgrim or Colonial times, and nearly all of them stayed in the northeast. Percy's family started on the east coast, but I was pleased to learn that these adventurous ancestors went west along the Oregon trail in 1851.

My Daniels lineage has been confirmed by Ancestry DNA at least as far back as my 3rd-great-grandparents, Austin Daniels and his wife, Mary Ellen Wilkinson, through matches with other descendants.

One of the great things about Ancestry DNA is their ThruLines feature, which suggests ancestors based on those in the trees of your DNA matches. ThruLines suggested that my immigrant ancestor of my great-grandfather, Percy Henry Daniels, was Thomas Daniel who sailed from England to Maryland on the ship "Stephen" in April of 1774. He was a 21-year old Coach Maker, contracted to work as an indentured servant for 4 or 5 years, according to this ship manifest found in Emigrants from England, 1773-1776, page 64.