Lyda Conley was the youngest of four daughters born to Elizabeth Burton Zane (1838–1879), a multiracial member of the Wyandot Nation, and Andrew Syrenus Conley (-1885), a Yankee of Scots-Irish and English descent who had migrated from New Canaan, Connecticut, to Ohio and Kansas.Albert Henry Conley, "Genealogy of Conley Family", c. 1921-1923, Conley Family Website, accessed 25 Feb 2009 Her family history was fairly common within the Wyandot Nation at the time, as increasing numbers of Wyandot married and had children with European Americans, resulting in increasing numbers of multiracial tribal members. The Conley family's move West was also part of a larger Wyandot migration as white encroachment of their ancestral land increased.
