See the Overview or FAQ before clicking JOIN.

Prospective members who have any questions ABOUT THE PROJECT after reading the materials here should email Susan at connollydna @ earthlink.net. If you expect your email to be seen and you want a reply, copy and paste the exact phrase CONLEY PROJECT into the subject line of your email. Current project members need to add their FTDNA account number on the subject line. Emails must be BRIEF (300 words or less). Do NOT send attachments. Otherwise your email will be regarded as spam and you will not get a reply.

Brief Notes on Project History

The Conley, Connelly, and Connolly project ("Conley project") was hosted at World Families without active management for many years. In 2018 an active project administrator and co-administrator signed on. Hosting and management were shifted from World Families to FTDNA. An external website for the project was launched by the new administrator at that time.

The project is gradually incorporating SNP haplogroup analysis along with STR markers to help better identify genuine Connolly and Conley lineages.

The decision was made in May 2018 to take all results private so as to eliminate any then and future issues with privacy laws. Any detailed STR analysis on our external website is present there because those testers have given their explicit written permission to utilize their genetic data in such detailed analysis.

Surname History

Our surnames come from the British Isles. The various spellings of these surnames were interchanged with each other in historical records. Modern anglicized forms lose the original old forms.

Y DNA shows our names had multiple origins (polygenetic), so we do not hold to any theory that one sept split into several paternal line branches. Surnames are a modern social invention - late first and early second millennum. Y SNPs distinguishing different Connolly lineages could significantly predate that time.

Sometimes our surnames are written as Ó Conghaile and as Ó Coingheallaigh (Cork).

The O'Connollys were rulers of Oriel (around modern day Armagh and Monaghan), the home of the Three Collas (multiple sources).

In the Elizabethan Fiants covering West Cork, Connolly may have been recorded as Kinella.

Richard Francis Cronnelly in his "Irish Family History, Volume 1", quotes west Cork historian John Collins that the Connollys were in service to the O'Donovans and were rewarded with ploughlands in West Cork as a result.

From LIBRARY IRELAND:

Mac Connlaodha or Mac Connla could be from County Offaly.

Connlaodh or Connleth was a patron of the Diocese of Kildare.

The Ó Conghalaigh were a branch of the southern Ui Neill and situated in Meath, and eventually resettled in Monaghan after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans.

Ó Conghalaigh were also a branch of the Galway Ui Maine (Connaught).

Resources

Our FAQ page contains a great deal of information on project eligibility and administration policies.

If you are new to DNA testing, there is an extensive DNA Testing Q & A page on our external project website (not FTDNA).

Our Code of Conduct page describes privacy policies and information.

The Administrators

Connie has Conley ancestry from Londonderry and has a particular interest in the Clan Colla Connollys. Susan is descended from Connollys in the West Cork parish of Drinagh.

Prospective members who have any questions ABOUT THE PROJECT after reading the materials here should email Susan at connollydna @ earthlink.net. If you expect your email to be seen and you want a reply, copy and paste the exact phrase CONLEY PROJECT into the subject line of your email. Current project members need to add their FTDNA account number on the subject line. Emails must be BRIEF (300 words or less). Do NOT send attachments. Otherwise your email will be regarded as spam and you will not get a reply.