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Website
I'm an electronic technician who is lucky enough to live high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, on the shores of beautiful Lake Tahoe (6,250 feet above sea level). I was born and raised in California and will probably live here for the rest of my life, although I'm not sure I want to be shoveling so much snow when I get older. I hope to move to some lower elevation where I can still be in the mountains, but with no chance that storms will dump up to 5 feet of snow at a time...
When I began working on this site in 1999 my job included repairing computers. I decided to find a project that would teach me how to talk to computers as well as making them do what I wanted them to do. That's how this site began. It began as a learning thing. It has since taken on a life of its own.
What I started out to do was trace the name "Conley" back as far as I could and in the process I came across a lot of information on other names as well. What you'll find on this site in addition to what I've found on my Conley roots will be information on the Allens, Bennetts, Fieldsas, Hitchcocks, Hoffmanns, Honakers, Jensens and many others.
I started out by gathering this information mostly from websites and people that I met on the Internet. That led to census reports and old books and documents and hours and hours of research. This site will be a continuous work-in-progress and if you have corrections or anything to add please email me. My email address is at the bottom of every page on this site.
You will see a lot of words that look like they are mispelled when it comes to census reports and other documents. Even though there will be plenty of errors on my part, I copied the words from the documents exactly the way they were written, or at least the way that I read them. For instance, "Katherine" could be spelled that way in the 1920 census but spelled "Catherine" in 1930. I wanted to copy these documents as accurately as possible.
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This link will take you to a list of the newest information that I've added.
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The Surname Index. Click here if you already know the name of the person that you want to research. All of the names on my site are linked from here. As of January 7, 2017 there are 98,549 people listed on these pages.
The Descendants of Henry Connelly. This branch of the family tree traces the Connelly/Conley name back to 1635 Ireland, including Captain Henry Connelly who was a Revolutionary War veteran. Some of the information from this line was taken from the two volume set of books The Conley Clan of Eastern Kentucky that is offered by The Magoffin County Historical Society. These books are a must for anyone researching the descendants of Captain Henry Connelly. Information was also taken from several William Elsey Connelley books, "Three Hundred Years In America" by Reginald Dowaine Conley, census reports, other documents, and last of all - the Conley descendants. Add your name to my site if you haven't already done so.
The Descendants of William Allen. Allen is my grandmother's maiden name and this branch starts in 1760 in Virginia. This line is infamous for a shootout in a courthouse in Hillsville, (Carroll County) Virginia in 1912 (read about it here). Two of my cousins went to the electric chair for their part in this crime. I received an incredible amount of help from Gail Allen with all of this, and also Ron Hall who wrote a book on the courthouse shootout. You can buy Ron's book here: The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy.
The Descendants of John Ayers. John was born in 1596 in England.
The Descendants of Edward Bennett. This branch starts in 1600 England and includes Thaddeus Bennett and his son Joseph, who were both ordained ministers and Revolutionary War veterans. Most of this information came from the fantastic research of descendant-in-law Nancy Storey Good.
The Descendants of William Hitchcock. This branch starts in England around 1640. I received a lot of help from Joe Conley of Paintsville, Kentucky on this line. Joe passed away on December 11, 2008.
The Descendants of Lorenz Hoffmann. This is my mother's side of the family and goes back to the early 1600s in Germany. A lot of the research that was done on this line was done by my grandmother, Bertha Hoffmann Hockett.
The Descendants of Rudolf Honegger. This branch is traced back to the 16th century in Switzerland.
The Descendants of Jens Tonnesen. This is a tough branch to research because of language barriers. Karen Fieldsa Seidler has done the research on the older information.
The Ancestors of Jerry Conley. I've had a number of requests wanting to know exactly where I fit into all of this. This link will take you to my information.
There's more to follow (I'm working as hard as I can) 
Doris Conley Boyles' account of life in the family of Oscar Conley and Agnes Allen. This is one of the best pieces on this site.
My Recollections is a paper that Richard Conley wrote about life growing up in the Oscar Conley family. This piece is another gem that I feel fortunate to be able to put on my website.
Captain Henry Connelly's testimony in 1833 when he was applying for a pension that was due to him for being a Revolutionary War veteran.
Joshua Hitchcock's testimony in 1833 when he was applying for his Revolutionary War veteran's pension.
The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy. In 1912 there was a shootout in the County Courthouse in Carroll County, Virginia. This shootout involved a part of the Allen family that you'll find on this site. This is a brief rundown of the shootout and some of the events leading up to it.
The Unknown Children of Captain Henry Connelly. This is a paper that was sent to me by Joe Conley in 2001 that attempts to clarify the lineage of several of the early Connellys from the Captain Henry Connelly line. Joe did a great job with his research and detective work here.
The 1929 Johnson County Shootout. This is about a drunken shootout by a still in Johnson County, Kentucky.
Conley Photo Gallery III
Allen Photo Gallery
Bennett Photo Gallery
Jensen-Fieldsa Photo Gallery I
Jensen-Fieldsa Photo Gallery II
Jensen/Fieldsa Photo Gallery III
The Magoffin County Historical Society is a good place to research Magoffin County, Kentucky.
Dr. Michael D. Nestor's website is a treasure trove of information on the Conley family and others.
I'd like to thank Gail Allen Justice, Penny Clagg, Doug Conley, Joe Conley, Richard Conley, Shirley Conley, Nancy Good, Karolyn Kirsch, Karen Seidler, and Sandra Wilber for their help with the research, and my brother, Keith, who drew the shamrock background. There are a lot more who also helped, but, unfortunately, I can't name them all. You know who you are. Thank you all very much.
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