My Irish Ancestor
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James O'Kelley | |
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| Pedigree as suggested by documents and my research |
| Rev James O'Kelley and Anna and Elizabeth Dean |
 Rev James O'Kelley
was likely born around 1715 in Co Meath Ireland, a descendant of the
O'Kelley of
Bregia, one of the
four tribes of Tara and "Styled Princes" and he
was likely the son of William
Kelly Esquire, a merchant in Kells Co Meatho Ireland who
died in 1748. It seems certain he was of the Irish Gentry with
title and money as
his sons and daughters married the Tuckers and Crowders who were
founding families of Virginia, their ancestors can be traced
back to Captain William Tucker 1621 and Hugh Crowder 1619
Charles City VA. I think it likely that
he was the James
Kelley from Caroline Co Virginia who enlisted in the
10th Virginia Regiment 7th Company Jan 15 1777 and died in
battle at
Brandywine
Sept 11 1977 and is buried in a
common grave at the
Birmingham-Lafayette Cemetery. I also think he
always went by O'Kelley and was just recorded as Kelley by those
unfamiliar with how to record his surname.James first married Anna Dean (Nancy) about 1737 and she was likely born in Co Meath Ireland and the marriage took place there. I believe Anna must have died after Benjamin was born perhaps about 1758 but she may have died giving birth to Benjamin, there is no method to know. I believe James O'Kelley secondly married Elizabeth Dean who was either Anna's much younger sister or she could have even been a younger first cousin who I suspect was living in the home with James and Anna at the time of Anna's death. Anna is likely buried some where in Caroline Co Virginia. James having a first and second family with women named Dean is why I believe we have the two competing family pedigrees and so many years between first and last born children. I suspect the hiding of this knowledge was an intentional deception by religious descendents. Marrying a deceased spouse's sibling was so common place in their time that England passed "The Marriage Act of 1835 which prohibited such a marriage after 1835 but they left the existing marriages valid. England fought over this in their legislature for another 65 years until it was repealed. I suspect that after several generations passed and our ancestors had moved to Georgia that the conservative religious members of our family purposely put in place roadblocks to hide what they believed was the "sin" of our ancestor and that is why he was forgotten and these two pedigrees created. People did and still do these kinds of deceptions. Rev James O'Kelly says almost nothing about his parents likely for the same reason. He is well engaged in his ministry when his father died at Brandywine. It might be his father's marriage to Elizabeth Dean was never popular with him and now that both his father and mother were deceased, this may have influenced Rev James O'Kelly explaining why he never adopted the double "e" spelling of his last name. Thomas also being a godly man likely took care of his widowed step mother Elizabeth and her home full of minor children after his father's death and that gave rise to the belief that Thomas had a previous wife and that Elizabeth Dean husband was Thomas O'Kelley and not James O'Kelley. This could explain why Thomas was 34 when he married Elizabeth Wyers and began his own family, he was occupied providing for his step mother and his step siblings until her own son Charles came of age, married and became established and could provide for her. It may have actually been required by law that a member of the family do this. In time and generations and maybe because ancestors were unwilling to speak about it I believe this became confused into two competing family pedigrees of James and Anna and Thomas and Elizabeth but the naming of the grandchildren and the finding of a 1827 Georgia Land Lottery for a Revolutionary War widow named Elizabeth O'Kelley living in Oglethorpe County causes me to believe the below pedigree is true. If Elizabeth Dean was still alive in 1827 then she likely was too young to be the mother of Rev James and Thomas O'Kelley so the only answer must be Elizabeth Dean was the second wife of James O'Kelley and perhaps this information was so religiously distasteful that some descendents suppressed it and some intentionally modified the story. Even Harold Ernst O'Kelley to lends support to my conclusion where on page 202 of his book he states that Macon had in her notes that Elizabeth Dean died after 1818 so clearly she would not have remained behind in Virginia and would have traveled to Georgia so it seems very likely she is the one who won the 1827 lottery. John Daniel McCurry a descendent of Rev James O'Kelly created a Pedigree in 1936 and his Pedigree records Thomas D, William D, and John as brothers of Rev James O'Kelly. John also gives Rev James as born in Mecklenburg Virginia but I don't think that can be supported. James O'Kelley and (Nancy) Anna Dean were likely married about 1740 maybe in Ireland as there were Deanes living in Co Meath, some very near Kells at the time James O'Kelley lived there. It seems a lot more probably that James would marry and Irish born woman than arriving in America and marrying an English descended American born woman. James O'Kelley and (Nancy) Anna Dean had the following children: James O'Kelley and Elizabeth Dean were likely married about 1758 or 1759 in Virginia. Elizabeth was likely a younger sister or cousin of Anna Dean. Elizabeth Dean 2,3 was likely born about 1735 in Surry Co Virginia to the Thomas Dean found in the land records in both Prince George and Surry Co VA but it is possible that she and her older sister Anna were born in Co Meath Ireland as it was the custom of native born Irish in America to take an Irish born wife mostly because fathers of American born women would not allow them to marry Irish born unless they were wealthy Gentry which isn't beyond possibility. Our family clearly seem to have means and influence early but if James Kelley did die at Brandywine, he wasn't an officer and that would indicate he might not have held a high station at that time. James O'Kelley and Elizabeth Dean had the following children:
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| Source: Rick O'Kelley **Source for Dean being the middle name of Charles O'Kelley is the Whiteheaddna.com website, I have found no proof nor can the Webmaster tell me his source. |
What comes below is provided mainly to make future researchers aware that I went down these "rabbit holes" so when they take the trip they will know that I did look at this in great detail and how what I found influenced my final conclusions. Previous researchers who published books left their readers with a lot of unanswered questions, my goal is to provide the details that caused me to come to my conclusions very much like I was presenting my case to a jury deciding the truth or innocents of a homicide suspect. I will allow you to judge the facts and come to your own conclusions.
It is accepted that my Kelly ancestor came from Ireland as a protestant but few descendants of the Irish understand just how radical and rare it was for a native Irishman to come from Ireland about or before 1750 and be anything other than poor and Catholic. My ancestors were Irish Catholic for more than a thousand years and before that time my ancestors were Druids but the same was true for all people of European descent but if my ancestor arrived in America before 1748 as protestant, then it is likely that he descended from a minor gentry or business protestant Irish family of Kellys and most of these were in the east of Ireland or along the coasts. My closest DNA match cousins comes from Co Clare, Co Meath, Donagh Parish Co Monaghan Ireland, and Co Galway Ireland and the stories of these family make it likely that our ancestor was born somewhere near Tara Co Meath Ireland and if he was protestant that he and maybe his parents may have been early Quaker converts as a large Quaker settlement was at Oldcastle near Kells in Co Meath. At some point the the Wesley influence came into our family and can be seen in the occupation and naming of children in my American family.
It has always been assumed that Thomas, Charles, Francis, and Benjamin could not read because they used marks as their signatures but according to Harold B Gill Literacy in Virginia it wasn't uncommon for rural children to be taught to read but not taught to write. I have found references in the Vestry Records of Virginia that the law required parents to teach their children to read and some children were taken from their parents and made wards of others because their parent failed to obey the law. Harold Ernest O'Kelley comments that Rev James O'Kellys writing appeared to be labored and self taught and that is likely how many rural children came to write, they did it by self teaching.
The case of the three O'Kelleys: James, Thomas, and William.
The James O'Kelley and Anna Dean pedigree came to me via Judith Reis a descendent of Benjamin Kelly in the telling of a story from her father about five pages of paper passed to her that are reported to have been written in the hand of her great grandfather, Dr Thomas K O'Kelley b 1833. It was said that Dr O'Kelley needed proof of age for his Civil War pension application so he removed from an old dictionary five blank pages which he copied information that he obtained from an unknown ancestor's bible then he slipped the pages into his old family bible and presented it to a notary who created a single page document about his examination of the bible and that was submitted to our government as proof of Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's age for his pension and today that document is in our National Archives. I have examined copies of these five pages and compared the handwriting with known examples of Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's handwriting found within his 1904 Civil War pension application that I obtained from our National Archives. Based upon my training from the Institute of Applied Science in handwriting analysis and my experience as a document examiner while working in law enforcement, it is my opinion that these five pages were likely written by the person who identified himself in his application as Dr Thomas K O'Kelley making these pages the only known documents I have seen written by a grandson of Benjamin O'Kelley. If the copies I have seen are the pages that the notarized document describes as being inside the bible then it is certain that these five pages were created before November 23 1908. Even if they are not, the pages had to be created before Dr Thomas K O'Kelley death in 1923 and that predates the books of J Fred O'Kelly and Alethea Jane Macon by almost 50 years making these pages the oldest known pedigree written in the hand of an O'Kelley representing our O'Kelley family.
So is the data that appears upon Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's pages valid? I find some conflicts with public documents and records and as an experienced Criminal Investigator I remind researchers that the stated motive of Dr Thomas K O'Kelley for creating these five pages was not the same motives of J Fred O'Kelly, Alethea Jane Macon and Harold Ernest O'Kelley. These authors were seeking the identity of our ancestors and their works were subjected to the "peer review" of their relations. Dr Thomas K O'Kelley was said to have created his five pages ONLY to satisfy the proof of age requirements for a pension and he then apparently never shared the data in a public way so his data never received "peer review" but if his data was already widely accepted as true during his lifetime, there would have been no need for him to make it public so I must weigh this and the possibility that some of his data might have just been created or made up maybe from stories he was told, after all the people evaluating his pension application had no ability to determine if Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's data was based in fact or if it was fabricated so there was little incentive for him to seek accuracy. I find no evidence that he continued his family research after he created these documents and that too must be weighed and it is my understanding the pages become public long after Dr O'Kelley had passed and quite by chance. Lastly I am left with questions, "if this data came from an ancestor's bible, why isn't this data more widely known by other family members; what happened to this bible that he was able to find yet no one else has any knowledge or can identify"? These are the questions an attorney might ask in a court if this data was put on trial before a jury. Perhaps the reason it isn't widely known is for the same reason our family history became lost in the first place. Descendants didn't care about their ancestors. How many O'Kelleys know who Dr Thomas K O'Kelley is, and he has been gone only a century and co published a book.
In his book "Nimrod" author Ron Lansing claims that "Nimrod" testified in court under oath that he was born in 1780 making "Nimrod" Benjamin's first born son but Dr Thomas K O'Kelley pages make him the third born son born in 1791. I suspect that "James Solomon O'Kelley" was the second son and he was just known as Solomon and I base my belief on "James Solomon O'Kelley" the son of Hugh Lee O'Kelley who was the second son of Solomon as this shows that James Solomon O'Kelley is a name used in Benjamin's line so this story is far from over but records seem to tell a somewhat different story than the five pages created by Dr Thomas K O'Kelley but that doesn't invalidate his pages. My investigation concludes that James O'Kelley was the name of my ancestor and he married Nancy Dean who went by the nickname "Anna" and when she died he married her younger sister Elizabeth Dean and had children by both wives.
Alethea Jane Macon and J Fred O'Kelly both made mention in their books that some believed James was the name of my Irish immigrant ancestor but I must point out that both authors wrote and sought information mostly about Charles and Francis O'Kelley and the related families that intermarried with their descendants. My
investigation of Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's James O'Kelley and Anna Dean 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 giving copies to his descendants and a photo of his painting appears to the right. The true origin of that image is unknown but it is likely that it became associated with our family by Thomas Dean O'Kelley, the father of Fredrick Henry O'Kelley as Thomas traveled to Ireland in 1883 and in the lifetime of Charles O'Kelly Esq of NewTown in the Co of Galway Ireland and Charles O'Kelly is one of three only known lines of O'Kellys appearing in Burkes Landed Gentry to use this Coat of Arms where the Enfield is Passant or with a leg raised as walking. All the other lines of Irish O'Kellys use a coat of arms with the Enfield is Statant meaning it has all four legs planted firmly upon the ground and while this appears to be a minor detail, it is the minor details that often result in the solving of most investigations.
Thomas Dean O'Kelley was the father of Mrs. Carl C Walker or Kate O'Kelley and she is the only descendant of Francis and Delilah O'Kelley that Alethea Jane Macon thanks in her book and Alethea Jane Macon states on the bottom of page 4 in her book "From the Francis O'Kelley branch of the family have come the names of the six son" so it seems likely Kate O'Kelley Walker is Macon's source for the well accepted O'Kelley Pedigree naming the six brothers; Thomas, George, William, Charles, Benjamin, and Francis but Macon is less clear about the origins of Thomas O'Kelley and Elizabeth Dean causing me to wonder if Kate believed our ancestor was named James as Kate's brother Fredrick Henry O'Kelley had a daughter, Mary Evelyn O'Kelley, and she 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.” Note- the 1815 date is how this information came to me but documents dispute this date, he came likely about 1748.
I present the above not as proof that Dr Thomas K O'Kelley pages are correct and James was the name of our immigrant ancestor but only to document that such belief originates from the line of Benjamin Kelly via his grandson Dr Thomas K O'Kelley and also from the line of Francis O'Kelley via the descendants of his grandson Dr Francis C O'Kelley. So we have Judith Reis a descendant of Benjamin and Mary Evelyn O'Kelley a descendant of Francis and each has a family pedigree claiming James O'Kelley and not Thomas O'Kelley was our ancestor.
Since before the civil war Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's line lived in Missouri and Dr Francis C O'Kelley's line lived in Georgia and these physicians are living in the same generation and were Doctors in the same time and I think it probable they may have professionally known each other. It may be that these two doctors more than one hundred years ago came to know each other because of their profession and in their exchange of information about their families they joined Thomas, George, William, Charles, Benjamin, and Francis into a single family as five of the six brothers appear within Dr Thomas K O'Kelley's five pages and all six brothers appear only in the books of J Fred O'Kelly book and Alethea Jane Macon and J Fred O'Kelly credits Alethea Jane Macon as his source and she tells her readers that, "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 obtained the names of the six sons from Kate O'Kelley and Macon is just passing on to her readers what the line of Dr Francis C O'Kelley provided her, meaning her conclusion were not based in any real evidence or documents, Macon is mostly reporting what she has been provided by others.
It should be noted that before Alethea Jane Macon published her book in 1969 that James was considered the name of our ancestor in two well "educated" lines of our family and while they shared the profession of physician they were separated by time and distance and that cannot be ignored. If Alethea Jane Macon had published that James was our ancestor's name then this would not even be questioned today, it would be a settled issue and I will remind all my readers that Alethea Jane Macon provided no evidence to support her claim that our ancestor's name was "Thomas" so the older evidence that James was my ancestor's name is very compelling and supported by the naming of the grandchildren.
Also appearing on the 1752 Lunenburg Co Tithe Census is a William Waire and a William Harwell and Harwell is also a name that appears decades earlier in Prince George Co. William Waire might be the father of Elizabeth Wyers who married Thomas O'Kelley in Granville NC and Thomas and Elizabeth Wyers son, Rev James married a Franky (Frances) Harwell and Charles's daughter Betsy Dean married a Mark Harwell, William Harwell may have been their grandfather.
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 son of George Washington O'Kelley gives Mecklenburg VA as his father's birth place and that George Washington was the son of Charles born about 1760 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 and Charles Kelley's land and tax records up to the year 1805 but it may be that our family came to Mecklenburg from Granville North Caroline as William Kelley appears in the NC census in 1762 and a James Kelley and Francis Kelley appears in the 1769 NC census also in the same county so where our family was before Mecklenburg is still very much a mystery.
Conclusion regarding William Kelly of Mecklenburg Co Virginia - Having gone deep into this "rabbit hole" I have conclude that William Kelly of Mecklenburg Co Virginia is not of my O'Kelley family and he is a descendant of Giles Kelly explaining why they never changed their name from Kelly to O'Kelley. If Charles and Mary named their first born son William then I believe he must have been so named after Charles's grandfather William Kelly the merchant and gentleman who died in Kells Ireland in 1748. What happened to their son? I can only conclude that he died young leaving no descendents or maybe he got lost in the sea of other William O'Kelleys. I leave William in my story solely so future researchers will know I looked at this and came to this conclusion.
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 Solomon after Solomon Williams, but there is evidence that suggest he may have named his son James Solomon O'Kelley.
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 have also noticed that people most often name children as a way of seeking favor. For example if a mother was very fond of her grandfather, a son seeking the favor of his mother may name a child after her grandfather, this seems more true when the father of that son has already passed. Politics doesn't just appear in those seeking office, it also appears in most normal families.
**Source for Dean being the middle name of Charles O'Kelley is the Whiteheaddna.com website.
