Peter Yancey and the Lewis County, New York Yanceys Peter Yancey Sr. (born Pierre Jantzi, in France) was the progenitor of the Yancey family in Lewis County, New York.

Peter was the 2nd oldest son of Christian Jantzi and Catherine Spendler, a family that emigrated to Lewis County after the death of Christian. They were one of about 20 Anabaptist families to emigrate in the early 1880s to northern New York, settling in Lewis County, or moving on to central Ontario, Canada.

Peter Yancey was the person who maintained and built up the Yancey homestead, originally purchased by the family and managed by Peter's older brother Christian Jr. for two years. After giving up control of the homestead, the older brother soon moved to Wisconsin and lived with the family name spelling of Yancy. Christian Jr. gave up the property to Peter in 1843 and Peter obtained title to the land and stayed on the homestead until his death in 1904.

The children of Peter are the nucleus of Yancey family members in Lewis County, although some children and grandchildren moved elsewhere. The family name Yancey is an English spelling of the German name Jantzi. Pronunciation of the name Jantzi is nearly the same as English pronunciation of Yancey, with the only difference being that in German it is sounded as 'Yoncey', a pronunciation still used by the Yancey family in Lewis County today.

Upon entering the United States, emigration clerks wrote the name as Yancey because it was a known name at the time. A group of older half-siblings of Peter Yancey (by a previous wife of Christian) kept the name Jantzi. They settled mostly in Ontario, leaving the family of Peter as the name-carriers of the northern Yanceys.

Peter managed the homestead in Lewis County as a timber and farming operation, clearing land for farming of the flat grounds of the present farm. A few years after taking control, he married a co-religionist emigrant from Europe. She already had a young daughter, whom Peter adopted and then the couple produced 10 more children, 9 of which survived to maturity and most had children of their own.