Colley Family Crest, Coat of Arms & Colley Name Origin

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Origin of the Name Colley

The Colley family history was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. include Cully, Culley, Cooley, Wellesley and Wesley. The name Colley can be of Irish or English origin. In Ireland the name is derived from the Gaelic Mac Colla sept that was located in Counties Galway and Roscommon. A sept or clan was a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. When the name is of English origin it refers to settlers who arrived in Ireland during the seventeenth century and who later acquire the lands of Wellesley. An early record of the name refers to a Father Walter Wellesley who was Bishop of Kildare from 1529 to 1539. With the failure of the male line of this family during the eighteenth century, their name was passed on to the Colleys of Castle Carbery, County Kildare, to whom they are closely related. In modern times these names are mostly found in their original homeland Counties as well as in Ulster Province.