If anyone has real proof, real evidence
that the name of our ancestor to come from Ireland and settle in America was James or Thomas, I am unaware.
I am just as unaware of any proof, documents or bible records that prove
that Thomas, George, William, Charles, Benjamin, and Francis were
brothers born to this family. There are family myths that many have accepted as proof but I am unaware
of any verifiable documentation from an independent source that confirms
James or Thomas and their above families lines are valid. I have read
stories that some old bibles support the James O'Kelley and Anna Dean or Thomas
O'Kelley and Elizabeth Dean traditions that
I have listed above but I know of no one alive who has seen the bibles
that James or Thomas are recorded within. My goal is to separate
fact from fiction and work from that which can be proven and to my
knowledge the only document that exists to aid us is
a
1782 Mecklenburg Co Virginia State Head of Household government census document that makes it likely
that William Kelley not Thomas O'Kelley or James
O'Kelley was the name of our ancestor who came from Ireland and settled
in Virginia and we see the Kelley name
used on the marriage records and
military service records of Thomas, Charles, Benjamin, and Francis.
The case of the three O'Kelleys:
James, Thomas, and William.
I choose to present a great deal of
detail mostly because
I am a man of considerable gab, an inherited trait
and I have a huge difficulty to overcome created by the
books of J Fred O'Kelly,
Alethea Jane Macon, and
Harold
O'Kelley. When J
Fred and Macon published their works in 1966 and 1969 they had the
luxury of presenting their
work unchallenged and mostly in agreement but that is not true for me.
The works of these authors and a later book published in 1985 by
Harold
O'Kelley are widely accepted and replicated by descendants so I must
present my readers with the evidence that proves the errors allowing my
readers to judge for themselves something not that much different than what I did in proving my
criminal cases
before a jury of 12 reasonable men and women.
I have a long history with
the book titled
"Some Descendants and Ancestral Kin of James
Stamps O'Kelley and Lucy Woodruff England" printed by
J Fred O'Kelly in 1966,
my first reading of it was as a young teen living in the home of my
parents almost a half a century ago and I have read and reread this book many times during my adulthood.
By the time Alethea Jane Macon
printed her book in
1969 my interest were anything other than the family that made my
birth possible so my first reading of her book came only in the Spring
of 2010
mostly because it was not widely distributed something that I have
changed, thanks to the Internet and the consent of Ms Macon's family
her
written words will out live the paper they were printed upon more than
forty years ago a fitting tribute to the accomplished life of
Alethea Jane Macon. My life
has come full circle as I recall my wonderings as a fourteen year
old child reading
J Fred O'Kelly's
book. I
hope to uncover much of our
ancestors past and present that information on my pages.
My reader should understand that our ancestors lived
a much different life than we live today, they came from different
influences certainly a different world. Well established religious beliefs of today were
radical and not widely accepted in their time. For more than
twelve hundred years the Christian world had been Roman Catholic and the
Irish developed a unique blend of Pagan (Nature) and Christian worship where the
wisdom about the natural world learned over many thousand years was interwoven with the much
newer teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Many today are
taught that Pagan beliefs were based in satanic worship which could not
be further from the truth. To be Pagan was to acquire wisdom and
knowledge of nature, the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, and the
seasons; to know when to plant and when to harvest, how to keep and
preserve foods to survive often deadly winters. This knowledge was
critical for survival. We accept that our
ancestor to come from Ireland was a protestant but few understand just
how radical and rare it was for a native Irishman to come from Ireland about
1750 and be anything other than poor and Catholic. Only
protestants were permitted to live in Virginia at the time our ancestor
arrived and to say one was a protestant was not enough, they had to pass
an examination conducted by a protestant minister providing knowledge
that only a protestant would know even before they were permitted on a
ship. Our ancestor must have arrived
with money in his pocket and a close association
with the English both very rare qualities in a native Irishman and
DNA proves he was native
Irish and not Scotch-Irish, he was related to the Hy-many native Irish O'Kellys. At
the time of his arrival most marriages were a business arrangement
between the father of the bride and the man seeking to marry her and it
was not uncommon for a man to buy his wife from the auction block,
although our history books hide the truth from us
white slaves in both the Christian and Muslim world were still in
use at that time and these were not indentured servants but white humans
who were born, lived and died in slavery***.
It is certain that Ms Dean was either Irish born or first generation
American born but of Irish parents as the Irish were so poorly thought
of that no self respecting father other than an Irish father would have
permitted his daughter marriage to even the highest born Irish.
I think it is certain that our
ancestor came from a family that received its income from farming and not a family that depended upon
the sea as we find no sea faring influence in our early family.
This makes it more likely our ancestor came from Co Roscommon or
interior Co Galway in Ireland. He does not appear on any church
membership records in Mecklenburg Virginia so it seems likely he was not
greatly influenced by faith nor did he come from a family that was
engaged in such. Rev James O'Kelley the
founder of the Christian Church in early America was in his forties
before he became a minister and before that time book author
W E MacClenny makes claim that he was a
champion fighter and a fiddler very common among the Irish. Our ancestor may have been a
professional soldier early in life, a great many Irish were and that
could be how he came to be in America and he could have received land
for his military service.
Below I describe the two most common and competing
claims as to the names of our first ancestors they being James O'Kelley
and Anna Dean and Thomas O'Kelley and Elizabeth Dean. I have
appended a third based solely upon real evidence, William Kelley and
Elizabeth Dean. I leave it to my readers to decide.
James O'Kelley and Anna
Dean came to me the spring
of 2010 via a
descendent of Benjamin Kelly in the telling of a
story from her father about five pages of paper that are claimed to have
been written in the hand of her great grandfather,
Dr Thomas K O'Kelley b 1833. He
reportedly complied these five pages from an unidentified ancestor's
bible more than one hundred years ago to submit with his 1904
Civil War pension application. Believing that if this story
were based in fact there would be an official record I acquired a copy of Dr O'Kelley's pension file
from our National Archives and these five pages are not
contained therein
nor are they mentioned within almost four dozen pages in that file, a
file that was created very late in
Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's
life and in that file there
is only a single
notarized one page document where the notary describes Dr O'Kelley's
presentation of his family Bible leaving me to question what his
motivation could have been to create said pages and why they survive
while the more valuable pre Civil War bible that is described in
the
notarized document
has disappeared in time? As an experienced homicide
investigator I find this suspicious especially so when one considers how
closely held those five pages are, I know of only one person who claims
to have seen them and all this makes the five pages suspect in my mind,
I don't think they are being falsely represented, only their origins may
have been misunderstood not uncommon when information is passed from one generation to the
next. My independent research of the data alleged to
be contained upon these pages has caused me to no longer believe the
tree of James and Anna could be valid for my family line and that is an
important distinction because the data could be valid for
Benjamin
Kelly but not for Charles Kelley something I will expand upon below.
This James is not
James O'Kelly of Aughrim who may actually be one of our Irish
ancestors but who lived between 1660 and his death July 12, 1691.
Alethea
Janes Macon and J Fred O'Kelly both
make mention in their books that some believed James was our ancestor
and Macon goes on to tell us that some believed incorrectly that he was
Rev James O'Kelley and my
investigation
of this possibility has brought me to the
Fredrick Henry O'Kelley
family of Conyers GA. I can connect this family to Macon by the
Coat of Arms image
that appears in the beginning of
Macon's book,
that image was the same
image that
Fredrick Henry O'Kelley
painted and a photo of his
painting appears on his page on this website. The origin of
that image is unknown.
Fredrick
was the brother to Mrs. Carl C
Walker or
Kate O'Kelley one of the people Macon thanks in her book. I believe
this family may have been Macon and J Fred's source for their statements
in their books that some believed the name of
our ancestor was James because Mary Evelyn O'Kelley, a
daughter of
Fredrick Henry O'Kelley
and a contemporary of
J Fred O'Kelly wrote a
college paper for her Masters Degree in the 60s where she presents:
“There was a man, James O’Kelley, with six sons. (landed in
Virginia 1815) Three of the sons were married and the other three did
not get married. All three of the married sons moved to the state of
Georgia, and all the O’Kelleys that are now in the state of Georgia, and
all the O’Kelleys we have been able to trace in ancestry that knew
anything about it were traceable back – all the O’Kelleys in the United
states that we could find – were traced back to one of those three sons
in the state of Georgia.”
I present the above not as proof that
James was the name of our ancestor, only to document that such belief
originated from the line of
Dr Francis C O'Kelley.
Dr Thomas K
O'Kelley was a
contemporary of Dr Francis C O'Kelley the grandfather of
Fredrick
Henry O'Kelley and
Kate O'Kelley and the great grandfather of
Mary Evelyn O'Kelley
and it is likely in time the two doctors came to
know of one and another and exchanged communications about the origins
of their
families and I believe it is reasonable to assume that
Dr Thomas K O'Kelley may have gained some of the
inspiration for the creation of his five
pages
from a bible in Dr Francis C O'Kelley's family, a
bible that indicates
that Francis and Delilah named their first born son James and there may have also been
some family lore passed or speculation created claiming that James may have actually been named
after Rev James O'Kelley who was very popular in Mecklenburg at the time
James was born, Rev James
O'Kelley may have been the minister who married
Francis and Delilah in Mecklenburg VA. If the five pages are from the time when
Dr
Thomas K O'Kelley lived, they may be written in his hand or they may be
pages written in the hand of someone within Dr Francis C
O'Kelley's
family and were mailed to Dr Thomas K O'Kelley
and he has been mistakenly credited as the creator of those five pages.
Only a lab specializing in paper and ink dating and in handwriting
analysis would know but at the time of this post, the descendant in
possession of the five pages has no desire to know or share the pages.
It may also be that these two doctors more than one hundred years ago in
their exchange of information about their families joined Thomas,
George, William D, Charles, Benjamin, and Francis into a single family
as my investigation has found these six brothers appear only upon the five
pages that
Dr
Thomas K O'Kelley is credited with creating and in
Alethea Jane
Macon's book and she tells her readers her source,
"From the Francis O'Kelley branch of the
family have come the names of six sons who were born to Thomas O'Kelley
and his wife Elizabeth Dean" so it seems clear
that Alethea Jane Macon is just
passing on to her readers what the line of Dr Francis C O'Kelley
provided her, meaning there is no proof in her book.
These parents nor
their sons appear together on any bible page or other verifiable record, they
are fantasy and
it is for this reason I believe some of this family may not be as they
are represented in the James O'Kelley and Anna Dean tradition and that this
family unit was manufactured and joined together by previous researchers something you can
read more detail about on my Alternative
Family Tree Page.
Thomas O'Kelley and
Elizabeth
Dean are in my opinion based solely on family myth created by
J Fred O'Kelly and
Alethea Jane Macon publications and they are
perhaps the most well known and accepted tradition but because they are
readily accepted by most descendants that doesn't make them correct.
I am unaware of any birth, marriage, death records, or early bible or
church records or census records to support the Thomas and Elizabeth tradition.
Alethea Jane Macon in her
1969 book says
"The best available evidence, however, leads to the belief that his name
was Thomas", but she fails to tell us what that
best available evidence might be.
I find that
curious to make such an important claim but not present the supporting
evidence so others can judge. I suspect she may not have desired
to do such as it might cause contention among her relations or she knew
her evidence would be rejected, sometimes less information is more
accepted. If Thomas was the name of our ancestor why did none of
the sons follow Irish tradition and name their first born son Thomas? Why was the first born
grandson named William and
why doesn't Thomas and family appear in the 1782 Mecklenburg Census?
Naming customs were very big deals with the native Irish, just living in
America would not change these customs so quickly and we see the naming
customs continued for several generations after. What prevented
Macon from considering
James and Anna as another possibility? She makes no mention of
Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's pages yet we know from the list of persons she thanks in her
book, one was a descendent of Dr Thomas K O'Kelley
but my investigation indicates that even among most of the descendants of
Dr Thomas K O'Kelley
the Thomas and Elizabeth tradition and not the James and
Anna tradition is embraced so it is likely Macon never knew about Dr Thomas K O'Kelley
pages as they appear to have only come into knowledge in the past decade
or so. Based upon my reading of
Macon's book I think the names of the six sons
came from
Kate O'Kelley a descendant of
Dr Francis C O'Kelley but I think the names of
Thomas and Elizabeth came from Alethea
Jane Macon and it is likely the only evidence for the 87 year old
Macon was what she
remembered from a visit with her Aunt Betty
more than a half a century
before the printing of her
book. I
would be lucky to live to 87 let alone remember all that
Alethea
Jane Macon remembers in her
book. No one
should take
this as a condemnation of Ms Macon, she took the information available
to her and came to a conclusion, we are lucky she cared enough to
publish her book.
William
(Denis) Kelley
and Elizabeth
Dean I suspect has been over looked
or dismissed by past researchers because they did not fit with family
lore but in my opinion as a homicide
investigator we have sound evidence in the form of a government document
that can not be dismissed. Based upon my understanding
as to how native born Irish families lived before modern times combined
with the evidence of the
1782 Mecklenburg Co Va
Head of Household census, the naming
customs of the native Irish, and DNA evidence and given there is zero evidence to support the
James or Thomas claim, I believe William Kelley was the true name of
our ancestor who came from Ireland and settled in Virginia.
William
(Denis) Kelley family of eleven are the only
Kelley, Kelly, O'Kelley or O'Kelly family that appears living in
Mecklenburg in 1782, a census conducted a mere four years after the
marriage of
Charles Kelley and Mary Crowder
and just three years after Charles Kelley appeared on the
1779 Mecklenburg Militia roster which was also the year of the birth of the first
American born grandson who was named
William,
and the census was conducted one year or less after the birth of the first American born
granddaughter who was named
Elizabeth (Betsy) Dean O'Kelley.
If Thomas or James were the name of Charles's father the
Irish naming customs
was to name the first
grandson after his paternal grandfather and if any of the sons named their first born
son Thomas that knowledge has been lost and only Francis the youngest named his first born James but I suspect
he was named after the very famous
Rev James O'Kelley who
lived in Mecklenburg at that time. The first born grandson was
named William supporting what
this census tells us, that our ancestor was
William Kelley.
Having been born in Ireland, William would have done as the native Irish
often did in that time, living with their children and grandchildren and
great grandchildren in a single home with the eldest male as the head of
the house which is exactly what we see in this
1782 Mecklenburg Co census with William and
ten others living exactly where and how they should be in that time. So it is likely that at the time of the 1782 census
all the family including Charles, Mary, their
children, young William
and Elizabeth lived with Charles's father and mother,
William Kelley and
Elizabeth Dean, and that
is the reason Charles does not appear as the head of his household in
this Mecklenburg census. Immigrants still do this today so often the answer is the simplest, the census tells us
the name of our ancestor. I also believe that
Lt William Denis Kelly of the 4th Virginia
Regiment was our ancestor and past researchers mistakenly made him a son
of Thomas. There may have been a son named William after his
father but
William Denis Kelly was an officer whose duties
required him to read and write and if he were the son born in 1754 he would have been
only 23 years old when he began his service. Officers received commissions mostly because of either their
training and experience or family influence within their community.
William Denis Kelly had some education, we
know this from his signature that appears on some documents on file at
our national archives but Thomas, Charles, and Benjamin all signed their
names with an X. If William Denis Kelly
was the husband of Elizabeth Dean and not the son he would have been in
his mid forties educated in Ireland, established in Virginia with a reputation in his community, and may
had experience gained during the Indian Wars, he would be a more likely
candidate for an Ensign than a 23 year old no body and it seems certain
that Elizabeth Dean's husband served in our Revolution because her name
appears on an
1827
Georgia Land Lottery where she as a
widow
won land.
I think the fact that we find Elizabeth Dean still living in 1827 is
proof that the Thomas born in 1750 was not her son and she was younger than
many believe.
How do we know that our family came
from Mecklenburg Co Virginia before their migrated to Georgia? The early
bible records
for George Wellborn O'Kelley the grandson of
Charles gives the birth place of his father,
George Washington O'Kelley as Mecklenburg VA and
Mecklenburg is where we find the
marriage record
for Francis Kelley and
Delilah Crowder and where we find Charles Kelley's name on a
1779 Mecklenburg Militia roster.
I have no doubt that many will reject
William as the husband of Elizabeth Dean solely because
J Fred O'Kelly,
Alethea Jane Macon, and Harold O'Kelley
all made minor mention that our ancestor's name could be
Thomas but none of these authors provided any supporting
evidence for their conclusions or tell us how they determined that was
his name. Macon devotes only part of page
four in her book to the possibility that Thomas was the name of our
ancestor, J Fred O'Kelly who published his book three years before Macon
gives us one sentence on page 42, Harold just accepts such is true and most descendants accept Thomas without question, as if it was a proven
fact as if they have his photo ID in their hands. In reading the works of these authors I am certain they
never intended such unyielding loyalty to their research.
Alethea Jane Macon addresses this by expressing her hope and desire
that future generations of descendants will use her work as a starting
point for their research so while many may be reluctant to embrace the
1782 Virginia Head of
Household census for what it proves, my training and experience as a
homicide investigator compels me to accept the evidence no matter where
it leads and if a government document can not be accepted as evidence
then what can? There are ten other people, most likely all Kelleys
living in this 1782 home and some had to have gone on and create descendants and all of the above authors agree that we descended from
the Mecklenburg Co VA Kelleys and this is proven by a
bible record of one of Charles's grandsons. I don't see how we can ignore
William Kelley and the ten others, the only Kelleys, Kellys, or
O'Kelleys that appear in the census and at a time all the above
researchers tell us our family was living in Mecklenburg the place all
the evidence tells us they should be. J Fred claims that Charles
sold his farm in Mecklenburg in 1805 and moved to Ga.
So for me and for my reasons stated this is a game changer.
This is the kind of stuff that moves investigators to lay
their case file on the desk of a prosecutor and asked for an arrest
warrant. Added together these different parts create a
preponderance of evidence that causes reasonable people to accept
something as proven fact. I believe the family of William Kelley
and Elizabeth and two sons, Charles and Francis are proven by facts.
The
Virginia 1782 Head of
Household Mecklenburg Census is not the only document that bears
William Kelley's name. In the Georgia records dated May 12 1784
which is just two years after the above census we find where William
Kelley claimed
500 acres in Wilkes Co Georgia. At that time, Oglethorpe and
Madison Co Georgia did not exists, those areas that would become these
counties were part of the much larger Wilkes County. It is likely
William Kelley and his wife Elizabeth Dean moved from Mecklenburg to
this acreages in the mid 1780s and it may be their son also named
William is who we find on a second claim of
100 acres
dated September 5, 1787. This acreage is located about 50 miles
south of the O'Kelley Whitehead Cemetery near Comer Georgia and probably
became part of the original Oglethorpe Co when it was created from a
portion of Wilkes County. It is very possible that the parents of
Charles and Francis left Virginia and moved to the area near what was to
become Oglethorpe
County almost two decades before Charles and Francis sold their lands in
Mecklenburg and also moved to Georgia making it possible that William
and Elizabeth could both be buried in the O'Kelley Whitehead Cemetery
south of Comer Georgia. It is just as possible that if
Thomas was a son, brother, or close cousin to
William that he migrated from North Carolina and joined William and
Elizabeth to work this large acreages making it possible for he and his
wife to appear on the
1800 US Census Oglethorpe Co Georgia
as reported
by Harold O'Kelley in his book.
Because of the large number of children reported on that census living
in the home of Thomas, Harold suggest that William the son may have died
and his minor children are living with Thomas a reasonable explanation
and this could be the source of the "best evidence" that Macon reports,
that this act of kindness was mangled or confused and the story that
Thomas was the father of William, Charles, and Francis was formed.
The Census records for Thomas's first born son, Francis make is certain
that Thomas had a first wife, the mother of Francis and I suspect that
her name was also Elizabeth Dean and that explains why that name appears
as a granddaughters in the families of Thomas and Charles. I am
not sure why any researcher would think that their could be only one
Elizabeth Dean given the number of Marys, Nancys, and Elizabeths that
follow. And my suggestion is supported by
Michael C
O'Laughlin, an accomplished modern Irish researcher, and in
his book "Ireland
Meath and Westmeath Genealogy.." he makes mention of the fact that
it is possible to have two different Irish men of the same name come
from the same townland in Ireland and both be married to a woman also of
the same name so while this might seems outside most possibilities
today, it was not uncommon in Ireland in the mid 1700s. It is very
possible that William Kelley the father of Charles and Thomas Kelley a
cousin to have both married woman named Elizabeth Dean and past
researchers mistakenly represent these two as one.
DNA makes it certain that William
Kelley came from Ireland, and his profile makes it likely he descended
from a landed gentry line and that increases the possibility that
records exist.
William may have married Elizabeth Dean(e) while in
Ireland as a Elizabeth Dean appears in Co Roscommon in the 1749 Elphin
Parish Census and some or all their children could have been born in Ireland and
once in America they settled in Mecklenburg, Co Virginia.
No matter where it took place, their marriage would have been arranged
and not likely a marriage which Ms Dean had a choice. Our ancestor may have been the
William
Denis O'Kelley or Wm D Kelly as he signed his name who served as an Officer in our revolution, William appeared as
the head of household with ten others in the
1782 Census, the only
Kelley, Kelly, O'Kelley, or O'Kelly family appearing in the Mecklenburg
Census. Certainly Charles and his wife Mary and
their two small children, William and
Elizabeth were four of the ten living in the
home in 1782 and the Mecklenburg William was
likely the William Kelley who appears in
1784 in Wilkes
Co Georgia on 500 acres of land located about 50 files south of the
O'Kelley Whitehead Cemetery which is located in Oglethorpe Co Georgia.
He likely lived out the rest of his natural
life in that area and he and Elizabeth could be buried in an unmarked graves
in Georgia. I think it is likely that Rev
James O'Kelly was Williams younger brother and Thomas Kelley born 1750
was a cousin,
DNA testing done so far
indicates Thomas born 1750 was not a brother to
Charles and Francis but a
cousin maybe four to five generations removed.
In the book "Finding
your Irish Roots.." by Stephanie Varney we learn the
Irish naming customs.
-
The oldest son was named
after his father's father. Charles named his son
William, Frances named his son James and I believe he was named
after Rev James O'Kelley the founder of the Christian Church and who
was living in Mecklenburg and may have married Francis and Delilah,
Thomas named his son Francis, and Benjamin named his son Soloman
after Soloman Williams.
-
The oldest daughter was named
after the mother's mother. Charles named his daughter
Elizabeth Dean, Francis names his daughter Martha, Thomas names his
daughter Ann, and Benjamin named his daughter Annie.
-
The second son was named
after the mother's father. Charles named his son
George Washington which could be after both George Crowder and
George Washington, Francis named his son Francis Dean, Thomas named
his son Thomas Dean which if DNA continues to indicate Thomas was a
cousin I think the Dean name in his descendants supports the
possibiity that Thomas may have a a first wife
who was also a Dean, and Benjamin named his son Francis Marion who was
the second most famous Revolutionary War Hero with George Washington
being the first.
-
The third son was named after
the father. Charles named his son Benjamin F likely
after the very popular Benjamin Franklin, Francis named his son
George likely after George Crowder his father-in-law, Thomas named
his son James who later became a minister in the Christian church
established by the previously mentioned and famous Rev James
O'Kelley the founder of the Christian church and Benjamin named his
son Nimrod after Nimrod Williams.
-
The fourth son was named
after the father's oldest brother. Charles named his
son James, Francis named his son Thomas, Thomas named his son
William, and Benjamin named his son Charles.
-
The second daughter was named
after the father's mother. Charles named his daughter
Frances, Francis named his daughter Delilah, Thomas named his
daughter Mary, and Benjamin named is daughter Elizabeth.
-
The third daughter was named
after the mother. Charles named this his daughter
Mary, Francis named his Mary, Thomas named his daughter Sarah, and
Benjamin had no additional daughters.
-
The fourth daughter was named
after the mother's oldest sister. Charles named his
daughter Nancy, Francis had no additional daughter, and Thomas named
his daughter Nancy.
What we do not know but must consider is
we do not know if there were children born before these children, could
have been named and then died and were forgotten by later generations.
There could have been more wives and more brothers. I think we can
be certain about the first born son of Charles, Macon tells us that he
appears in the poll tax paid by his father and we some records for his
descendants but I have not been able to find a method that proves that
he was named William and Alethea Jane Macon does not tell us her source
for that name. We have the
1838
bible records to tell us the family line of Francis so that seems
rather certain. Thomas left a will but deceased children
would not be listed in a will so it is possible there may have been a
son before Francis and he could have died and there is some evidence to
support this. The same could be true for Benjamin.
If we apply the naming custom to the
birth order of the sons in Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's tree of James and Anna we would have
Thomas as the name of the father of the sons since the name Thomas is in
the #3 position and Thomas's father would have been James since he was
in the #1 position and the
maternal grandfather or Ms Dean's father would have been named Charles.
If we applied the naming custom to Macon's tree of Thomas and Elizabeth, the
#3 son was named William so even Alethea Jane Macon's tree supports the
Mecklenburg Census. Because Thomas was the first born and George
second that indicates that the grandfathers of the first America born sons would be Thomas
O'Kelley and George Dean.
My research indicates it is unlikely our
ancestor came to America using the
O'Kelley
name or any other Irish variation and I am not the only researcher to
conclude such, J Fred in his 1966 book
tells about how difficult it would have been for an Irishman to come
with the "O' ". By the time our ancestor came, most all the
English speaking Irish O'Kelleys had dropped the O from the name and
were going by Kelley or Kelly because to do otherwise made it difficult
to survive. The Irish under the pain of death in the 16th and 17th
century were being forced to become as English and that included
dropping the O'. It is also very possible that he and his wife
left Ireland under an assumed name as to hide their true identity and
maybe protect the family left behind and this is the reason they may not
appear in ship records or land grant records.
Col Charles
O'Kelley, the 9th Lord of Screen, (Scrine) Ireland used a name
to conceal his true identity and protect his family as did many others
and it would be reasonable that our ancestor having descended from the
same line as Col O'Kelley could have done the same. Dr O'Donovan's
1843 book, "Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many..."
there is a
line my DNA has indicated our family descendents from, and it contained
in that book where in
1585 and 1601 Gaelic Gentry O'Kelleys
agreed to become as English, dropping the O from their name and spelling
their name in English and not Gaelic, becoming protestant, and bringing
up their children in English ways and in return the lands they ruled
over were granted back to them under the protection of English law.
The poor Gaelic Irish having only their lives and souls to loose
remained Catholic and using the Irish Gaelic tongue well into the early
1800s providing an explanation as to how our first Ancestor may have
came to America as protestant and not Irish Catholic and how he came
with the Kelley spelling of his name which we see in the 1782 census.
Irish Gaelic landed gentry had reason to become protestant and to learn
the English language.
In Gaelic our name originally appeared as
Ua Ceallaigh then later as Ó Ceallaigh and it was pronounced as "O Kel
Lee". Contrary to what Alethea Macon and Harold O'Kelley stated in
their books, I can find no record where the name appeared as
O'Ceallaigh, the apostrophe was a later English invention to aid those
less familiar in correctly pronouncing the name. I think there can be no
doubt that our Ancestors spelled their name in English and without the O
to appease the English and try to avoid death and keep what property and
wealth they had. The difficulties experienced by our ancestors can
not be understated, their day to day life as was for all Irish was about
living and dying. Those loyal and dependent upon these Gaelic
O'Kelley Irish lords certainly were under considerable pressure to do as
they did. In early Virginia one would only be asking for trouble
if they used the very Irish O'Kelley name and by the time our ancestor
would have come to America the public use of our Gaelic Irish name, Ó
Ceallaigh, had not been used for many generations but within the Irish
families and privately it may have been both taught and used.
Charles, Thomas, and Benjamin all appear as Kelly in their Revolutionary
War records and Thomas, Charles, and Francis marriage records appears as Kelley so
I am certain that our Irish name was not publically used in America by
our family in Gaelic or English spelling until our Revolutionary War
when free of the English our family was free to embrace their Irish
ancestry. We do find the O'Kelley spelling on many of our early
ancestor's gravestones and such but I believe that is only because later
descendents used
O'Kelley and they attached those names to our early ancestors.
My grandfather
Charles gravestone and
Rev James O'Kelly's
gravestone both bear
O'Kelley but both stones were set decades after their deaths and in
a time when the O'Kelley
spelling was widely in use.
-
Deanes of Galway City and County
Galway Ireland or the Ó Déaghain -
We
should not neglect the Dean side of our family in our research, the name
meaning Valley Dwellers. I
think the common held belief in our family is our ancestor and Miss Dean
met in America and married probably in Virginia but I am unaware of evidence to support such.
J Fred O'Kelly in
his 1966 book just states that James or Thomas Kelley married
Elizabeth Dean and he provides no statement if this marriage occurred in
America or Ireland. Alethea Jane Macon
on page 4 of her 1969 book tells us that Thomas came to Virginia and
married Elizabeth Dean in about 1748 but she doesn't tell the reader how
she came to her conclusion so I suspect she is just repeating family
lore in book form.
Harold O'Kelley concludes that Miss Deans father was Benjamin Dean
because the name Benjamin appears in our family and he finds a Benjamin
Dean who served in our revolution but I am certain the
source of Benjamin in our family came from the very popular Benjamin
Franklin and we most often find it as Benjamin Franklin or Benj F
O'Kelley, never as the custom dictated, as Benjamin Dean O'Kelley. I think it is far more likely that Miss Dean's father
was Francis Deane or Charles Deane or Thomas Deane, the three names we
most commonly see associated with the Dean middle name in our early
family. I also know of no family tradition stories that tell us
this is how our two ancestors came to be married but the Irish were not
well thought of in the time our ancestor
was believed to have come so it
is very unlikely that someone who wasn't Irish would have married our
Irish ancestor. If you view
this map you will find
that during the time our ancestors lived in Ireland the Deanes lived on
or near Dublin road just east of Galway Bay making it likely Elizabeth
Dean or her father were Irish born. This seems proven by the 1749
Elphin Parish Census that records many Deans in Co Roscommon including a
woman named Elizabeth Dean.
The Deane family name originates from
Normandy and after the 12th century invasion of England many Normans
followed William the Conqueror into Ireland and over the next couple of
centuries more came and some stayed and the Deanes reportedly came
during that time, stayed, and settled in the city of Galway; the
Deane family became one of the
14 tribes
of Galway City County Galway Ireland and over time the Deane family
came to be known as part of the Old English families in Ireland. who
reportedly became more Irish than the native Irish. Some historians
claim the Old English in Ireland learned the language and adopting the customs
and intermarried with the native Irish. The Old
English considered themselves superior to the Irish because they
considered themselves as both English and Irish so they rarely married
their daughters or sons to the native Irish except when their was
considerable gain and even then only to the landed Gentry Irish.
Because my DNA tells us that my O'Kelley line descended from the Ui
Ceallaigh of Ui Maine which at one time included the city of Galway
and my ancestor arrived in America as protestant with the very
protestant name William in a time when most all native Irish were
Catholic and hated the English King William, I
think it is far more likely that my O'Kelley Ancestor was of the landed Gaelic Gentry
Irish and Miss Dean's marriage was arranged by their families to
consolidate power and wealth between the two families and they married
in Ireland. Something happened forcing the married couple out of
Ireland and to Virginia. It could have been the penal laws enacted
by the protestant English which was applied against even the Old English
living in Ireland because they were historically Catholic or it could
have been the repeated calamities of just pain bad luck that plagued
Ireland for much of the early 18th century that caused the young couple
to want shed of Ireland or it may have just been the promise of the new
land that caused them to come. If I am correct we may get lucky
and find a marriage record in a church near Galway Ireland of an
Kelley and a Deane just a few years before they came to America.
I suspect they may have left Ireland because in 1740 a Great Frost
occurred all over Europe and it killed animals and seed robbing the
Irish of their food. The frost was followed by a drought that
caused crops in 1741 to fail then in the Winter of 1741 the heavens
opened causing many great floods. Certainly those who could leave,
left because Ireland was a place of death and misery. I believe it
is likely that the young O'Kelley couple came to America during this
time, a time and a land one would want to forget. Lets be clear on this,
I can not yet prove my theory but I think it is likely but without proof
I am unwilling to state this is true.
In the
Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde Vol 10 part 5 dated 1686 and
1687 which is just a little more than 20 years before our ancestor was
believed to have been born we find Stephen, Thomas, Lawrence, and James
Deane on the Galway Ireland city council. Thomas Deane was a
wealthy merchant who held the only tobacco franchise in the city.
Richard Deane was a city comptroller. The tribes of Galway were
extremely loyal to the English Royal family but also traditionally
Catholic since that was the original faith of the English Royals.
After 1691 the Galway Catholics as did all of Ireland's Catholics faced
the loss of their homes, land, and wealth unless they converted to the
Anglican protestant faith so to avoid ruin some did convert. I
think it is certain that the names Thomas Dean, Francis Dean, and
Charles Dean were names that originated from Miss Dean's family as it
was the custom of the Irish to use this naming custom to pass down
maternal names of important people. Francis Dean was probably her
father's name and Thomas Dean her wealthy grandfather and that is why
these names appear so often in our first and second born American
ancestors. In the 1790 Head of Household Virginia State Census we find a
Francis Dean living in Middlesex county, a county that borders King and
Queen County so this could be Elizabeth Dean's father or a brother named
after his father.
There is yet another possibility,
although very rare and few in numbers there was a Gaelic Irish O'Deane
family (Ó Deagháin). I don't yet know
the exactly location from where they came but some claim they were
originally O' Donnells or O'Gallaghers from Co Kilkenny and Tipperary.
I think it is certain that Ms Dean was not English born and must
have originated from Ireland because no self respecting English father
would have permitted his daughter to marry an Irish man. To do so
would be akin to a white woman in Georgia marrying a black man at about
the time of our civil war.
Because DNA indicates that Thomas and
Charles may not gave been brothers but cousins and Charles named his first born daughter, the
first America born grand daughter Elizabeth Dean Kelley and Thomas's son
Francis also named a daughter Elizabeth D I think it is likely that
there was more than one woman named Elizabeth Dean who married into the
O'Kelley family. I am not sure why researchers would believe there
could be only one Elizabeth Dean who married an O'Kelley, naming children after their elders have been common
and it is likely that Elizabeth Dean who married William Kelley may have
been named after one of her elders who had more than one descendant so
named. It is very possible that these two Elizabeth Deans, one
marrying William Kelley and the other marrying Thomas Kelley setup the
confusion that caused descendants to joined Thomas and Charles as
brothers.
Crowders - The Deans are
not the only English family with Irish roots. A "Crowd" was a
fiddle and a Crowder was one who played a fiddle. The name Crowder
is of English origins but with the settlements of English and Scots in
mostly eastern Ireland beginning in 1600, some English Crowders settled
in Ireland and it is likely that these Irish born Crowders are the
origins of Mary and Delilah, the wives of Charles and Francis O'Kelley.
* Source for the middle name of Francis
being "C" comes from an 1871 bible of
Effie Kate
O'Kelley in the possession of her family.
**Source for Dean being the middle name of
Charles O'Kelley is the
Whiteheaddna.com website.
*** In his book "The Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many:
Commonly Called OKelly Country" Dr John O'Donovan tells his reader about a
family line living in Hy-Many Ireland who were a slave family line.
All of Europe including protestant England engaged in white slavery and they
used the Bible as the authority. This knowledge has been mostly wiped
from the memory of our modern world.