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