I've heard that same story: Kell*Y* = Catholic, and Kell*EY* = Protestant. Could be. KELLEY is a spelling rarely found in Ireland, I am told. If you are from Ireland, you probably spell the name KELLY. Perhaps our Irish subscribers (who live in Ireland) will comment on this. My family has spelled the name "Kelley" at least as far back as my 3rd-g grandfather, George W. Kelley, and he was a Primitive Baptist preacher in Franklin and Floyd Counties VA. He had an uncle and other relatives who were also Primitive Baptist preachers, in VA and KY. Our oldest family tradition is that this name was originally "O'KELLEY" and that the immigrant ancestor came from Ireland in approximately (best guess) 1690 to Virginia. Since it seems to fit in with this discussion, I am including some notes at the bottom of this message concerning Baptists in England and why they came to the Colonies. Records for the Rev. George W. Kelley have both spellings in them...sometimes in the same document. Of course that could have been county clerks spelling it the way they thought it was spelled. My grandfather was one of five children; one of his brothers spelled the name *without* the "E" while the rest of the family spelled it *with* the "E." My theory is that my ancestors couldn't spell. I know people didn't concern themselves much with consistency in spelling prior to the 20th century, and I think that had something to do with it. In my genealogical software, I have chosen to use the "KELLEY" spelling, for consistency in record-keeping. When I find a record with a different spelling, I note this in my research notes. A few years ago I was corresponding with a Kelley/Kelly researcher who had a lot of information about my family. She chose to spell the name "KELLY" throughout her database and asked if I minded about this. Well, since she included me, my siblings and my parents, etc., in her records, I most certainly did mind! Our name is KELLEY, not KELLY. (Woof!) Here is what another Kelley/Kelly researcher shared with me recently: "My Kelleys came from London to Detroit about 1872. The records in England I've found so far spell the name Kelly. It appears they started spelling the name Kelley over here. My guess is that in the 1870s, it wasn't cool to be Irish so the Brits that had Irish surnames, adapted the spelling to indicate they were different and not to be confused with their Irish counterparts. That's my theory anyway and I'm sticking to it until I find something different." BAPTIST CHURCH in Franklin County, VA, brief history: "...[one of the largest] non-German (generally English) groups [was] the Baptist denomination, which grew largely from roots in the North Carolina Piedmont and in Pittsylvania County... "The Baptists are another religious denomination that has been active in Franklin County for about the same length of time as the Brethren--perhaps even longer. The English Baptists were separatists from the Church of England who also embraced the baptism of adult believers. They were considered dangerous and were persecuted both in England and in the colonies because they espoused religious freedom and independent thought. Although Baptists were active in England in the early 1600s, they were little noticed in the colonies until the Great Awakening, the era of spiritual revival and reawakening that swept through the North American colonies, especially New England, between 1720 and 1760. The evangelizing methods of the Baptists made them an anathema to the Church of England authorities, especially in Virginia, where persecution kept their numbers small...." Source: "Franklin County, Virginia 1786-1986, A Bicentennial History," by John S. Salmon and Emily J. Salmon, 1993, pp. 188-197. Paula Kelley Ward San Antonio, Texas pward@express-news.net "Genealogy is the art of confusing the dead and irritating the living.”