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  We
are one of the oldest and few families in the
world to still use the very Irish surname of
O'Kelley which appeared as Ui Ceallaigh
in Irish Gaelic meaning "grandson of Cellach" which
is pronounced as "Kelley". The
majority of my Y-DNA matches
and family tradition stories suggest we came from
Bregia in Co Meath and we
took our name from
Cellach, King of
Ireland and we are the
O'Kelley of
Bregia.
I have a rare 1 in 123 Y-DNA match to the remains of
Pollnagollum 911 R-FGC11134 found in the Pollnagollum Cave in modern day Co Fermanagh
Northern Ireland and he puts my Y-DNA in Ireland about
4200 years ago. Pollnagollum 911 was found
with the remains of two female,
Pollnagollum 86 U4a3a may have been the
wife of
Pollnagollum 911 making her the grandmother of all my O'Kelley
kin. Pollnagollum 90 T2b2b
who lived about 4100 years ago, may have been a great granddaughter
and
Pollnagollum 911 isn't my only ancient Irish
ancestor, in Co Sligo in a cist Cairn was found the
remains of
Treanmacmurtagh 116 who lived about 4000 years
ago.
My 1st and 2nd great
grandparents were buried less than a mile from our
childhood home and in the summer dad would load the
mower in the back of his 51 Ford Pickup and we would
go with him to the cemetery to mow our grandparents
graves. Sometimes our O'Kelley grandparents
would stop by and they told us more than once that
we were the "old Irish" and descended from the High
Kings of Ireland and that was the story handed down
in my family for generations.
 That
all changed when
Aletha Jane Macon an 87 year old retired school
teacher from Georgia published her book in 1969
titled "Four
O’Kelley Sons and Some of their Descendants – Allied
Families". Macon opens her book with
a suggestion that all O'Kelleys and O'Kelly
were of the
O'Kelly of Hy-Many and she puts the Coat of Arms of
the Hy-Many in her book with O'Kelley under it causing readers to
conclude it belonged to our O'Kelley family. If it is
written in a book especially by an educator it must
be true, right?
So where did Macon get this notion that we might be
Hy-Many? My Investigation concludes that
it came from
Effie Cate O'Kelley a story handed down to her
from her father
Thomas Dean O'Kelley born on 4 September 1856,
after graduating college in 1883, he traveled to
Europe with his college professor and Ireland was
one of the places they visited. He came back with
the Hy-Many Coat of Arms and a story that all
O'Kelleys descend from the Hy-Many which at that
time they might have believed that true after all
some of the Hy-Many O'Kellys did come to America in
the 1600s and our family had been out of Ireland for
so long that the Irish likely didn't remember us,
the
O'Kelley of Bregia, descendents of the 141st Monarch
of Ireland Aed Slaine. Thomas Dean O'Kelley's
son,
Fredrick Henry O'Kelley, was an artist, he
painted copies of the Hy-Many Coat of Arms, and gave
them as gifts over the years and they have been
handed down to his living descendents today and one
of these exact copies right down to the maker's mark
was used by Alethea Jane Macon inside the cover of
her 1969 book.
Even the Funk and
Wagnalls Encyclopedia in the book case in my parents
home made the claim that all O'Kellys came from
Teague O'Kelly who died at the Battle of Contarf so
the belief that we were Hy-Many or Ui Mhaine became
deeply engrained in my family and even some of the
Irish Hy-Many believed it true also but the story
that my grandparents told me while we were standing
at the graves of my 1st and 2nd grandparents before
Macon's book didn't fit with the belief that we were
of Hy-Many as they lived in the west of Ireland when
Meath was in the east and the Hy-Many didn't descend
from the High Kings of Ireland so in 2010 I tested
my Y-DNA and to make sure I also tested my
uncle John and our Y-DNA test results compared to the
test results of a well documented descendent of Hy-Many
proved beyond all doubt that we did not come from
the Hy-Many O'Kellys and since 2010 as more and more
people tested their Y-DNA, my Y-DNA matches indicated we likely
did come from Co Meath just as my grandparents said
and then in 2023 I discovered matches to 4000 year
old remains found in Ireland of
Pollnagollum 911 and Treanmacmurtagh 116 proving
that that we really are of "The Old Irish" as my
grandparents claimed.
We are kin to the
O'Kelly of Hy-many but we must go back almost 4500 years
which is 3500 years before surnames came into use in
Ireland to find the grandfather we share with the
O'Kelly of Ui Mhaine. Our shared Y-DNA match to
the remains of Thornholme 18606 R-DF-13 and the
O'Kelly of Hy-Many or Ui Mhaine Y DNA rare match to
remains of Thornholme
22060 R-BY154824 makes it very likely that
our shared grandfather lived in or near
Thornholme Yorkshire England about 4300 to 4500 years ago
but the Globetrekker Maping tool suggest that
grandfather likely lived in Cumbria England.
My rare 1 in 123 match to the
remains of
Pollnagollum
911 R-FGC11134 in Co Fermanagh and Treanmacmurtagh 116 R-FGC11134 found in a
cist burial inside a cairn in Co Sligo solidly cement my Y-DNA in Ireland
about 4000 years ago. Pollnagollum Cave 911 is the oldest Irish Ancestor
for the
FamilyTreeDNA Kelley R1B Group15B
and those in my 111 Marker matches.
For more on
my DNA research click on this link.
Our family tradition story and
records prove that our ancestor arrived in America
before 1750 but during our US Civil War many
courthouses and churches in Virginia were burned
destroying the records that make it possible for us
to know when our ancestors arrived and who they
might be but because "Thomas O'Kelley seems to be a
consistence belief I think it likely the first of
our family to leave Ireland and come to Virginia was
Thomas and Honor who arrived with their children
in 1690 AD and Thomas was likely using "O Kelley" as
his surname and when we appear as Kelly in some
early records it is due to the unfamiliarity of
Irish names by the person recording our name and in
some cases it might be due to the English efforts
that began in the 16th century to intentional
suppress Irish surnames.
Thomas and Honor settled on the John Pleasant
Plantation near the Huguenot settlement at Manikin
VA and several of our early ancestors while in
Virginia married Huguenot women and men causing me
to conclude that
Thomas and Honor were my Irish ancestors.
For two and one
half centuries in America generations of my family
have passed down our name, our story, and records
and much survives today. Few
 have such a
rich family history that stretch back almost 5000
years, that stretches back before the time that some
claim that Noah and his sons survived a worldwide
flood. Few families have a signature of
their 3rd great grandfather born in 1795 in our
National Archives proving the spelling of our
O'Kelley surname.
I am not faulting
Aletha Jane Macon,
at 87 years of age she used the resources she had available to her to
come to a conclusion just as I have done. I
believe she did it hoping to inspire someone like me
to take an interest. Macon wasn't alone
in causing confusion in our family. It is from a
family pedigree create in 1904 and written in
the hand of
Dr Thomas K
O'Kelley and passed down to his great
great granddaughter
Judith Knowles
Ries my 6th cousin that comes the names
James O'Kelley
and Anna Dean and their first born son the famous
Rev James O'Kelly, Charles, Thomas, Elizabeth,
Polly Ann, Benjamin, Francis, and George. This
great family treasure predates the
Alethea Jane Macon Pedigree by more than 60
years but it doesn't stand alone as
Mary Evelyn
O'Kelley my 4th cousin 1x removed wrote
her 1960 college paper about our ancestors and she
names our ancestor as
James O'Kelley
and his six sons that most migrated to Georgia but
August 11, 2022 the Y-DNA results of
James Thomas
O'Kelley a traceable
descendent of Benjamin O'Kelley the ancestor of
Dr Thomas K
O'Kelley changed everything calling into
question the validity of his
family pedigree create in 1904 as the DNA
results of two descendents of
Thomas, two descendent of
Charles and now one descendent of
Benjamin
proves that these men were not brothers but cousins
of different degrees. Only
Charles and Francis appear to be brothers, they
married Crowder sisters, lived on the same land near
Comer GA and the
the 1871 Bible that belongs to the
Thomas Dean
O'Kelley who went to Ireland records them as
brothers but it
will take Y-DNA test of a traceable descendent of
Francis to prove it is true. While
Thomas and
Charles are likely first or second cousins,
Benjamin
is likely their 3rd or 4th cousins, one would have to go
back to
Thomas and Honora both born in 1658 to find the O'Kelley
grandparents that
Thomas and
Charles, share with
Benjamin. Any pedigree
that claims they were brothers is not valid but is
possible that a James O'Kelley and Anna Dean were
the parents of
Benjamin
and until a descendent of Rev James O'Kelley
completes a Y-DNA test it is possible that
Benjamin
was Rev James O'Kelley's much younger brother.
 My
fourteen year investigation based in my experience
as an criminal investigator, DNA, records, and
tradition stories suggest a strong possibility that everyone who is
blood related to me descends from
Aed of
Slaine a Monarch of Ireland in the 6th
Century and there is some DNA evidence to support
my conclusion as I share a grandfather with
Claristown 14 who lived near the time Aed lived and
Claristown 14's remains were found 5 miles from
Slaine Co Meath Ireland in a Ring Ditch Burial.
In Ireland bodies buried in a circle with an
important person buried in the middle were the
fashion of burial for some Irish Kings.
My grandparents have been deceased for more than two
decades and just a few years ago I discovered they
were not alone in the telling of our family story as
 from
Ruth Barton Pullium
my 6th cousin 2x removed comes her family tradition
story handed down to her father from her
grandmother Salina
O'Kelley who was the granddaughter of
Thomas O'Kelley a first cousin
to my 4th great grandfather
Charles O'Kelley and her story says
that our
ancestors were "prominent" and came from
Co Meath. When living Ruth
orally told the story to some that our ancestor was
of the
Four Tribes of Tara said to be "prominent",
a very similar story my grandparents told and perhaps before the Battle of Clontarf that might have been true
but it wasn't true when our ancestors left Ireland
for Virginia. I tracked down that
Old Map of Ireland
"Erin's First Family"
published in the 1800s that Macon references in her
book, and it is said to represent land
holdings from 1000 CE to 1600 CE and it shows the
O'Kelly
Prince of Bregia near Tara that supports Ruth's claim and
supported by my grandparents and there
is nothing in my Y-DNA results, research, or
Dr John O'Donovan's comment that excludes this
possibility.
Claristown 14 remains were found within the
northeast portion of Bregia as it appears on this
map and Slaine is only a few miles northwest of
Bregia as it appears on this map and the
The
Annals of Clonmacnoisc refer to the Bregia or Brey as the lands of Aed of Slaine and the O'Kellyes right up to the coming of King Henry II
and it was a much bigger place in that time, from
Dublin to Louth and included Tara so I can't
disprove Ruth's story handed down in her family and
my DNA match to the
Claristown 14 remains makes it possible that
over the thousands of years our family was in
Ireland we moved from Co Fermanagh into Brey or
Bregia, became Kings of Ireland and stayed in Bregia
or migrated back
to Co Fermanagh during the time of Queen Elizabeth
or and my family could have remained in Bregia. I
have found evidence that supports both
possibilities.
I doubt this investigation is over.
A new Y-DNA match could turn it all on it's head,
taking us in a different direction. The DNA
testing of discovered human remains will continue
long after I am gone.
Rick O'Kelley, Webmaster,
rick@arkansasusa.net
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