THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CONLEY FAMILY
The Family's story begins in Virginia, then continues to North Carolina, and led to Alabama. There were people before them from Africa, Ireland, and Scotland. The story of the Conleys unfolded shortly after the Revolutionary War transformed the 13 rebellious colonies into a newly formed United States. Various family members allowed their names to be spelled Connally, Connelly, Conlee, Conly, Connelley, and many other variations.
The maps below tells the story of our migration, after our ancestors landed on the shores of New York and Virginia.
Early Conleys often made reference to having been born in ‘Virginia’ ‘South Carolina’ or ‘Georgia’. Most states we know today had yet been formed. As those Conleys aged, the very same towns they were born in would be redefined part of Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, West Virginia, or Ohio. Conleys often changed their answers to the question ‘where were you born?’, every 10 years, and with good reason.
Special note: People born in ‘Georgia’ before 1819, could very well have died in ‘Alabama’ 50 years later because the states were divided by the Chattahoochee river in 1800. The same is true for the Conleys who were born in parts known as ‘Virginia’ which became ‘Kentucky’ within decades.
1776
When the Conleys got their start in the New World, around 1712, the map of the Colonies above revealed a region in development. The South was where the money was, as farming in New England was difficult and largely unprofitable. The lucrative crops such as cotton, rice, tobacco, and citrus could only grow in the Southeast.
1783
By 1783, Virginia and Georgia expanded their borders, dominating the newly formed United States. This is why many Conleys from the era indicated that they were born in Virginia or Georgia, yet subsequent documents showed them in new states such as Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois. All of which would be carved out of the Virginia and Georgia. Note. Both Maine and Western New York State were a part of Massachusetts in 1783.
1800
At the turn of the century in 1800, Virginia had been broken up out of fear by the northeastern states that Virginia was too large, too rich and too powerful. The ‘Northwest Territory’ was separated from Pennsylvania as a compromise, and it would become Ohio in later years. The border of North Carolina and Tennessee had hardened, creating Kentucky. The area that would become Alabama was still a part of Georgia. Spain and France surrounded the new country on the Southern and Western borders. It would be 20 years before Florida would become part of the U.S. , and Alabama and Mississippi would be created.
1860
On the eve of the Civil War, the map above shows how the United States was defined. As the war between the states began in 1861 and 1865, the Conley migration to Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states where the backlash against Reconstruction was slightly less violent. Certain Conleys also joined the effort to expand the United States to the west and north of Texas. Conleys helped tame the Wild West arriving in territories that would later become Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, long before those states were formed.
