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Neeley

The Neeleys are of Ulster Scots descent and originally were Calvinists (Presbyterians). Scots-Irish is another term often used for this group of people. The Thomas Neeley (1695-1756) line of Neeleys spent a little more than a century in northern Ireland (Ulster) between the early 1600s, when they left Lowland Scotland as part of an English plan to establish large settlements of Scottish Protestants in Ulster, and about 1728 when Thomas Neeley, Sr. decided to leave Ulster to go to Pennsylvania.

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The earliest recorded Ulster Neeleys

The Neeleys first appear in Ulster in the early 1600s around Londonderry and also Glencull in County Tyrone. The earliest record of an adult Neeley found to date in Ulster is of William Neeley who is listed "with sword only" as his armament in the 1631 Muster Roll of County Donegal; he was living in Innishowen Barony on the Chichester estate. The Mormon LDS records show a William Neeley of Burt born in 1621 in County Donegal who appears to be the first William's oldest son. The area where the family first lived in Ulster, therefore, was around Burt Castle on the Chichester estates, about five miles west of Londonderry. LDS records and the Register of Derry Cathedral 1635-1708 list a series of Neeleys born around the general area of Londonderry from about 1621 to 1635, including John Neeley of Cumber, born about 1625. These children (William, Rory, Robert, ​Matthew, Margaret, James, and John) appear to be those of William and indicate he was established in Ulster before 1621. The limited available evidence suggests that William Neeley may have come to Ulster as a young soldier from Scotland in 1608 with William Stewart in response to an Irish uprising by Sir Cahir O'Doherty who owned Burt Castle until he was defeated in 1608. If so, William Neeley was probably born about 1590 (18 years old in 1608) and married about 1620.​​

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History

Ulster Scot

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