How did I come up with the above
family tree? It is based upon records and known
pedigrees. Thomas and Honor I have explained above and
certainly their children went on as protestants likely
living in and around Henrico Co Virginia but as more counties were
created from Henrico and surround counties they likely
didn't always remain in Henrico Co. The pattern that
our ancestors followed was as free land opened up in more
remote locations, they or their descendants migrated to take
advantage of those opportunities. I have no
information about the children of Thomas and Honor other
than what appears in the ship records, they landed in
Virginia with five chidlren and at least one was a male and
another a female. I must turn to other records to
construct the great grandchildren of Thomas and Honora.
James Kelley was likely born in Virginia, somewhere around
Henrico Co, maybe Caroline, maybe King and Queen, there are
several James appearing in the records in different places
in that region. I suspect that James and Anna were
real people as Dr
Thomas K O'Kelley's Pedigree begins with James O'Kelley and
Anna Dean and i doubt that was just manufactured, I suspect
it was based in some knowledge but that it wasn't fully
understood or intact. While I have never been able to prove the
existence of James and Anna with records it does seem likely they may
have existed but there are several problems with Dr Thomas
K O'Kelleys pedigree, the first being the age of James and
Anna. Their Pedigree puts there birth in 1710 and
their first born son in 1735 and last born in 1761 making
Anna 51. That wasn't impossible but I think it was unlikely.
The second problem is the pedigree doesn't account for
Elizabeth Dean and it seems certain Charles O'Kelley and
Mary Crowder named their first born daughter after the
mother of Charles, Elizabeth Dean. My modified
pedigree premites both Anna Dean and Elizabeth Dean and it
is supported by the naming of the first born daughters of
Thomas and Charles.
Many desired to make James born in 1735, the first born son
of James and Anna as represented in Dr O'Kelley's pedigree Rev James
O'Kelley and while that seems possible, author W.E.
MacClenny made the claim that Rev James's father was named William
and that brings me to my final problem. I am certain
the names Thomas Dean, Charles Dean, and Francis Dean came
from the Dean family that is why they appear with the Dean
surname as the middle name but how did three different Deans
come to appear in our early family? The naming custom was to
name the second son after the maternal grandfather and the
fourth son after the maternal great grandfather but we have
three Dean names so to solve this problem I looked at the
early history of our family where we find two Chastain women and
three Crowder women, sisters married O'Kelleys so why can
the same not be true for two or more Dean women, that they
married different O'Kelley men? This really makes good sense when one considers that
Thomas and Elizabeth Wyers named their first born daughter
Ann and Charles and Mary Crowder named their first born
daughter Elizabeth Dean. A great many things become
possible if there are two Dean women marrying two O'Kelley
men and if Thomas
was an uncle and there are reasons to suspect this
might be true, our family pedigree takes shape in a way that
fits with the known census records.
In the Rev James O'Kelley
Elon University collection is a
Pedigree created in the
early part of the 20th century by a descendant,
John Daniel
McCurry and it is his
Pedigree that we learn that Rev James
O'Kelly may have had three brothers, a William, John, and a
Thomas O'Kelly. Long have many believed Rev James
O'Kelly was of our family,
Alethea Jane Macon makes mention
of this in her book and Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's pedigree has a
James O'Kelley born about the time as Rev James O'Kelley but
what has always caused problems with connecting Rev James to
our family is author
W. E. MacClenny
wrote in his book
The Life of Rev
James O'Kelly that Rev James O'Kelly's father was William
O'Kelly of Ireland and his mother was the granddaughter of
Englishman Rev John Chetwode but MacClenny's documentation doesn't
connect the dots, it does not
provide any support for his claim and the
Pedigree
of
John Daniel
McCurry doesn't give Rev James O'Kelly's father's name so the only evidence we have to
look at is the naming of his sons, William, John, James, and
Thomas. William is the only son that we have a birth
year so we do
not have the birth order of the children allowing the
researcher to apply the naming custom. Most believe John was the first born
because he is mentioned first in the will of Rev James
O'Kelly but John appears to be the only surviving son at the
time of the wills formation, dead sons are normally not
mentioned in a will but William is mentioned but only to identify his children so it seems
only natural that a living son would be named in a will
before grandchildren so I do not see the will as an aid in
determining birth order,
meaning Rev James's father could have been William, John,
James, or Thomas leaving me free to fit Rev James into our
pedigree where he best fits which I have done above.
There is a major shift in my pedigree as
I have moved
Thomas who is most
often given as the first born son of Thomas O'Kelley and
Elizabeth Dean from being a brother of Charles to being
his uncle and I believe that is true because of the naming
of the daughters and because we never see Thomas and Charles
living near each other but it is also possible that Thomas
could have been the son of Rev James O'Kelly and Elizabeth
Meeks. Thomas lived in NC where Rev James
lived, both were friends with the Penns, James with William
Penn and Thomas with John Penn, both were anti slavery, both
named sons John and the name Pendleton only appears in the
line of Rev James and Thomas. Both has a descendant
named John Wesley O'Kelley. Professor Peter Jefferson
Kernolde in his book "
Lives
of Christian ministers: over two hundred memoirs"
makes the claim that three descendants of Thomas O'Kelley
and Elizabeth Wyers were descendants of Rev James O'Kelly
and that would be true if Thomas were the son of Rev James
O'Kelly. Thomas does not appear in the will of Rev
James O'Kelly but he was dead by the time that will was
written and with his descendants living in Georgia and
Williams living near Rev James it seems only natural they
would not be named in his will so it seems likely Thomas and Rev James were brothers
as given by John Daniel McCurry in his pedigree or the son
of Rev James O'Kelly that
Alethea Jane Macon speaks of in her book. Being
born about 1750 he is of the age that he could have been Rev
James's younger brother but no one truly knows Rev James's
year of birth and an 1800 Oglethorpe Census gives Thomas as
born before 1755 so Thomas could have been born in 1754 and
Rev James O'Kelley in 1734 so it is very possible that
Thomas could also be the Thomas that appears as Rev James's
son. I think he was Rev James O'Kellys brother because
his first born daughter was named Ann likely after Anna Dean
and we see the Dean name handed down in his line.
By moving Thomas this makes it possible for Elizabeth Dean
to be younger by maybe as much as ten years and this could
be supported by year another document for we find in the
1827 Georgia Land Lottery an Elizabeth O'Kelley of
Oglethorpe County Ga who received land as a revolutionary
war widow. Elizabeth Dean is the only person who could
be using the O'Kelley name, living in Oglethorpe and be a
revolutionary widow and this could be possible if she was
born about 1735. Also receiving land in that lottery
was Francis O'Kelley given as a Revolutionary War veteran
but I know of no one who has found evidence of his service,
the Daughter's of the America Revolution quotes the same
book that we find Elizabeth O'Kelley in but there were many
reasons people became eligible to draw in that lottery, War
Vet, a war widow and an orphan all received two draws and
while one might think an orphan had to be a minor, in 1827
there were no minor revolutionary war orphans causing me to
suspect that the term orphan was loosely defined and it also
meant those who were orphaned during that war. No one
has every found Elizabeth Dean's husband and that might be
that he was killed in the war and before Francis was 18
making him a minor who lost his father and that could have
resulted in him being mistaken for a War Vet when he was
actually a War Orphan. The above pedigree solves a
great many problems and answers a lot of questions that can
not be answered using the commonly accepted pedigrees.
There is however one last detail, in place of Thomas
O'Kelley I have a James O'Kelley as the first born son of
William Kelley and Elizabeth Dean. There was a James
Kelley from Caroline Co Virginia who was in the 10th
Virginia 7 Company and he died at the battle of Brandywine
Sept 11, 1777. I suspect he may have been of our
family but he could have also been the son of Rev James
O'Kelly and Elizabeth Meeks as some believe they came from
Surry County Virginia but no one knows for certain.