When I started researching my family I assumed anyone with the surname DAKE
must be related to my family but I soon learned that was not necessarily the
case. To date I have found at least three distinct unrelated lines and many
individuals bearing the DAKE surname have not been associated with any of
these three lines as yet and represent the potential for more unrelated lines
to exist.

I have organized the data into groups named for the U.S. origin of the oldest
known ancestor. My line originated in Virginia with John Dake Sr. in the 1700's,
thus is named the "Virginia Line". Another line originated in Rhode Island with
George and Richard Deake in the early 1700's and is thus named the "Rhode Island Line".
The third line is believed to have originated in South Carolina in the 1700's and
is thus named the "South Carolina Line".

My primary contacts for the Virginia Line were James Emmit Dake (a.k.a. J.E. Dake)
and Gaylord Benjamin Dake along with many more contributors. For the South Carolina
Line my primary contributor is Robert Neil Dake. For the Rhode Island Line my primary
contact is Maurice Lynn Dake with contributions from Leslie A. Green.

Humm... Well here is the story regarding my association with Maurice Lynn Dake:

I am originally from Mountain Grove, Wright Co., Missouri and Maurice is
from Cedar Rapids, Linn Co., Iowa. I had spent 7 years in the US Navy stationed
in Albany, Georgia, Key West, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia. I drove from
Virginia to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in late August or early September of 1976 to
interview for a job with General Electric Medical Systems.

During the interviews I was asked by several interviewers if I had a brother
or cousin interviewing with the company also. At that time I had no knowledge
of Maurice's existence but he was apparently interviewing for a job with some
of the same people. We were both hired by GE into different departments but
eventually wound up working in the same department. Our assigned employee
numbers were only one sequential digit difference and our phone numbers were
only different by the transposition of the last two digits. As you can imagine
this caused a fair amount of confusion and we always wondered if we could be
related. This puzzle is what got me started working on Genealogy, along with
some prompting from my daughter who is interested but too busy to do the research.

Maurice has found that his line originated in Rhode Island in the early 1700s and
the spelling was Deake at that time. My Line originated in Virginia in the late
1700s with John Dake Sr. who had strong ties to the German community (German
Bible, German Songbook, Married and lived within a German community). In my
research I have identified another line of the Dake Surname originating in South
Carolina. I am aware of concentrations of the Dake Surname in Wisconsin,
Michigan, Oklahoma and some connections to the Deep South (Alabama & Texas)
possibly as many as 7 unrelated lines. There are also concentrations of the
Dake Surname in Indiana which is part of the Virginia Line. Maurice's line is
relatively large compared with the Virginia line. Maurice attributes much of his
data to Leslie Angus Green II a member of the Rhode Island Line.

While I've never met Leslie Green II, I have spoken with him via telephone and
corresponded with him by mail. Leslie was a member of the Rhode Island Line of
Dakes and had done a great deal of research on the Dake Surname. He lived in
Greenville, South Carolina where James Emmit Dake (a.k.a. J.E. Dake), a member
of the Virginia Line of Dakes, was pastor of a local church. J.E. Dake was
researching his line of Dakes and the two had a great deal of discussion regarding
the origins of the two families. J.E. said that Leslie believed they were related
but J.E. did not. This resulted in much research on both sides and concluded in
an agreement that the two lines are NOT connected in any way. This is what Leslie
confirmed to me when I last spoke with him via telephone. Leslie had written a one
page account of his research entitled "Dake families of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and
Missouri" in 1972 which was very helpful in sorting out the differences.

J.E. Dake was my primary contact when I started researching my family. He was
living in Springfield, Missouri and I lived in Muskego, Wisconsin at that time.
We had several telephone conversations and mail transactions. I visited J.E.
in November the year before he died. He would answer questions, let me copy
some photos, but wouldn't let me copy his documents. He did show me the 55 page
hand written memoirs of Harrison Dake, a grandson of Benjamin Dake of Shelby Co.,
Indiana (Benjamin was a brother to John Jackson Dake). Harrison mentioned that
Benjamin's Grandfather (John Dake Sr.) had been a Hessian Soldier. This is the
sole source of J.E.'s theory on the Hessian Soldier story. I have looked
for him in various documents related to the American Revolution with no success.
The British were responsible for payments and insurance of Hessians and kept very
good records so I would expect to find him there if the story were true. J.E.
did publish this in the "History & Families of Wright Co. MO" before he died but
had no documentation other than the memoirs of Harrison Dake. I believe J.E. just
quit looking when he found the memoirs and I haven't been anxious to distribute it
without further supporting documentation; although it is interesting reading.

After J.E. died, I called his wife, who let me copy his documents and additional
photos. Gaylord Dake also gave me quite a bit of information including videos of his
visit to the Dake Cemetery in Shelby Co., IN and Shenandoah Co., VA. I have been
traveling the past two years and have visited these places and more gathering information
and documents related to Dake Genealogy.

I am still working on a number of possibilities regarding the origin of John Dake Sr.
as follows:

1. Hessian Soldier story:

This has not been disproven and could be true. If he changed his name
to avoid detection/capture this is probably at a dead-end. Most people
doing this would pick Smith, Jones, or Johnson however, not Dake!

2. South Carolina/Tennessee connection:

There is a line of Dake's originating in South Carolina in the 1700's.
They migrated to Meigs & McMinn Co., Tennessee then parts of their family
migrated to Miller Co., MO, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, etc. Some remnants
of this family remain in Tennessee today.

To date I have not been able to connect them with my line of Dake's, but
J.E. told me that John Dake Sr. Paid taxes in Washington Co., VA (I have
not verified this) which is suspiciously close to Tennessee. There was a
Elias Dake on land in Craven Co., SC in 1773. I am trying to connect him
to Jonathan Dake of Tennessee who reported that he was born in SC.
There is a possibility that John Dake Sr. was a relative of Elias Dake
(brother, cousin, etc.).

I have suggested a DNA test to a member of the SC line of Dakes if and when
the tests are available at a reasonable cost to determine if there is a
connection and at what generation.

3. Amelia Gilreath theory:

Amelia "Amy" Gilreath is a Genealogist that works with the DAR and publishes
books. Her family is connected to mine through the marriage of Magdaline Dake,
a daughter of John Dake Sr., who married Peter Holler Sr. in 1813. Amy states
in her book "Haller, Hollar, Holler Genealogy by Amelia C. Gilreath 1981." that
John Dake Sr. was the son of another John Dake who owned land on Back Creek in
Frederick Co., VA.

When questioned about this connection Amy admitted that it was just an
assumption and she had no documentation to support this other than land
ownership records. Amy has no incentive to prove or disprove this as we
are a peripheral branch of her family.

This remains a possibility and needs follow-up research.

4. Pennsylvania connection:

Two Dake surnames appeared in the Washington Co., PA census of 1790.

Frederick Dake with 2 male children 16 yrs or older and 2 male children
under 16 years and Michael Dake with 2 male children under 16 yrs of age.

No more information is known at this time. There is a possible connection
here as the time frame is feasible.

-- Owen C. Dake 5/24/2002

5. Joyce Clifford information:

Tuesday 28 May 2002: Joyce Clifford provided information about John Dake Sr.
and his family with regard to entries in the Zion-Pine Lutheran Church records that
show the name was spelled Deg, Teg, or Dege.