Fourth Generation
100. Salina Avaline O'Kelley was born on 2 February 1848 in Clermont, Hall, Georgia, United States. She died on 1 October 1924 at the age of 76 in Marble Cherokee Co NC.
Salina was the grandmother of Ruth Barton Pullium who posted in Genforum August 29 2000 the following:
All I know is that my father told me we came from Meath county. He was very
knowledgeable about his family. There were many Okellys who lived in Tara
which is in county Meath. My grandmother claimed that her people were
prominent in Ireland. We disregarded this, but I have found in my research
in Ireland that this was certainly true. Thirty Okellys were high kings of
Hymaine which encompassed most of Ireland. I have a copy of The Book Of the
Okellys. It tells all. I have located the graves of Thomas 1 and 2. They are
unmarked. I am trying to raise the funds to mark them. If interested let me
know. I am 80 years old and I live about 100 miles from the site. I have a
man who will mark it for a goodly sum. There are so many of us it would be
fairly inexpensive. Cousin Ruth
Webmaster's
comments: My
Y-DNA results compared with the results of a descendent of Festus Kelly
of HY-Many proves beyond all doubt that we do not descent from the O'Kellys
of HY-Many and Ruth's grandmother didn't say we descend from Hy-Many she
said we lived in Tara in Co Meath which is the place of the O'Kelley of Brey
one of the inherited lines that could become the High King of Ireland lived. We share a grandfather with them about 4500 years ago
which was 3500 before the O'Kelley surname came into use and our surname
comes from a different Cellach than their surname. Ruth is doing what
all the researchers of my family did, unaware of the O'Kelley of Bregia Ruth
is assuming we were Hy-Many and thus making her grandmother's Tara Co Meath
fit into that belief.
My research indicates the belief that we came from Hy-Many originated with 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. Thomas Dean O'Kelley's son, Fredrick Henry O'Kelley, was an artist he painted some copies, he made numerous copies and gave them as gifts over the years which have been handed down to his living descendents today and one of these exact copies right down the makers mark was used by Alethea Jane Macon inside the cover of her 1969 book.
Salina was born just 8 years before Thomas Dean O'Kelley, she lived in his lifetime and perhaps she heard the Hy-Many story and her Tara and Co Meath was a misunderstood rebuke. My Y-DNA combined with research indicates that we could have descended from Clann Ceallaigh of Co Fermanagh or their kin the O'Kelleys of Bregia who lived near Tara. In the time of Aed Slaine High King of Ireland Brega began at the north boundary of Dublin, extended north to Lough and as far west as Kells, perhaps further. It included all of Tara and maybe all the way north to Clann Cealligh in Northern Co Monaghan. This map respresents what Bregia may have looked like when our ancestor left Ireland about 1690 and came to Virginia.
Salina Avaline O'Kelley and Zemmery Young Barton were married on 13 July 1871 in GA. Zemmery Young Barton was born on 4 March 1848 in Clermont, Hall, Georgia, United States.
Salina Avaline O'Kelley and Zemmery Young Barton had the following children:
+320 | i. | William Jackson Barton. |