German origin
Fluid surnames |
When
I started this research over ten years ago I was
convinced that my McHALEY line was of
Scotch-Irish or Irish origin,
for such was the family lore. I held to this presumption strongly for a long
time. I
telephoned a McHALEY in Colorado who described that his family came from
Germany in the mid 1800’s, and changed their name. So, I became aware that
this possibility might apply to our family. At
Boris
Neubert’s website in Germany I found a lot of research that he has done
on families with surnames that might be German counterparts to our family,
including MICHAELY. But, I found no direct evidence connecting us to Germany. I
created a database of census, court, land, marriage, military, and will
records of MICHAELEY sounding names in North Carolina. Surprisingly, I found
that often records indexed as MCHALEY, included MAHALA and MAHALEY name
variations. And I found that records indexed at MAHALA, or MAHALEY included
the McHALEY name. Variations included MAHALA, MAHALAY, MAHALEY, MAHALY,
MALEY, McGALEY, MCHALY, MCHALEY, MCKALEY, MEHALA, MEHALEY, MICHAELY,
MICHALEY, MICHALY, MHALY, MHALEY, and MICHALY. This data made it apparent
that the surname was very fluid in the early 1800’s. Generally by the 1840’s
descendants became established as MAHALA, MAHALEY, or MCHALEY. So
far, the evidence is from secondary sources, and should not be assumed to be
entirely correct. Hopefully it will be more fully verified that the children
are siblings and not cousins. Bible and church records would be helpful. |
Contact me
for questions, corrections, suggestions, or who you might contact for more
information.
MICHAELY, surname variations in first two
generations
MICHAELY, chart of first known family
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