“Ralph Dayton is the uncontested immigrant progenitor in North America… It is said that most everyone with ‘Dayton Blood’ on this side of the ocean can trace his or her lineage back to Ralph.” There are thousands of people in the United States with that surname. (Stephen & James Dayton, Our Long Island Ancestors, 2015) Ralph emigrated from Ashford, Kent, England about 1639/40. But who were his ancestors and how did he get to Ashford? There are lots of theories, but the trail is fogged by generations of missing records, evolving naming conventions, a variety of phonetic surname spellings, and illiteracy. Did Ralph descend from a Dayton, a Drayton, a Deighton, another variant of the Dayton surname? We've also found descendants with surnames of Vail, Hale, Soards and Ashton. Are you a descendant of Ralph? Do you want to know how you are connected to him? With a bit of luck, Y-DNA may provide the answer.