The story in my family is just about identical to yours. My father and grandfather being devout protestants spelled our name Kelley and let it be known that it had been that way forever. A couple of generations earlier they were all spelling it Kelly and they seem to have been protestants also. I think most Kellys and a lot of us Kelleys are traceable to Catholic Kellys in Ireland. Of course when you go thru a couple of generations on the frontier where many were illiterate, your name is apt to be spelled the way the census taker or preacher heard it, and some apparently didn't hear or spell well. --------Ed Kelley