Eighth Generation


1916. Judith Knowles (private).

Judith Knowles and Patrick Ries were married. Patrick Ries (private).

Judith possess the only known O'Kelley Pedigree contained on five small pages and written in the hand of Dr Thomas K O'Kelley before 1904.  The story passed down was Dr Thomas K O'Kelley needed proof of his age for his Civil War Pension Application so not desiring to write it in his personal bible, he removed five blank pages from a dictionary and copied his family pedigree from an unknown ancestor's bible and placed these five pages within his personal bible and then he presented his bible to the notary who submitted his examination of Dr Thomas K O'Kelleys bible with the application.  These are found in our National Archives where I purchased a copy.

Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's bible has disappeared in time but I tracked down copies of bibles printed in 1854 as described in the notaries description and of the sizes of these pages and none that I viewed had the traditional places within to record ones family so Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's method was a reasonable method to satisfy his pension application requirements.   These pages are not large so I suspect his bible was a personal and not a full size family bible as one is lead to believe from the notaries description.

The Publish Author of 1976 book "A Patchwork of Memories, a Knowles/O'Kelley Genealogy"

The Publish Author of  Ed O’Kelley: The Man Who Murdered Jesse James’ Murderer