John O'Larey : Short Biography

Our line of O'Larey's descend from John O'Larey.   The story that has been passed down is that John O'Larey was born in 1816 in Cork, Ireland.  He immigrated to Nova Scota in about 1846.  In 1847 he married Catherine Roberson.  She was born in 1834 in Scotland and the family immigrated to Scotland.  After marrying, they moved to the United States - to Massachusets, then to Wisconsin and Minnesota before finally settling in Garretson, South Dakota.  They had 4 children:  William Henry born in 1852 in Wisconsin, Charles Augustus born in 1856 in Marquette County, Wisconsin, Jane (Jeannie) born in 1858 in Saratoga, Minnesota and Catherine was born in 1860 in Saratoga Wisconsin.

John died 28 Sep 1889 in Garretson, South Dakota.  His year of birth was derived by subtracting his age on his headstone from his death date.  Sometime after his death, his wife Catherine came out West and joined some of her children that had already moved West and settled in Washington State.  I descend from their son William Henry.  My family tree is public in Ancestry.com (PM OLarey Family Tree).  Many of John's descendents changed the spelling of their last name frequently between O'Larey and O'Leary.  In fact, my grandfather had named some of his children O'Larey and others O'Leary.  My family spells their hame O'Larey and my cousins spell their surname O'Leary.  What we do know is that John the immigrant was buried with the O'Larey spelling.

In 2019, we wanted to learn a bit more about our O'Larey line and hoped to connect with relatives in Ireland.  My male O'Leary cousin took the Big Y700 DNA test in FamilyTree DNA.  We discovered that we were not related to any O'Larey's or O'Leary's - we were related to several people named Buckley.  We cannot find enough close DNA matches to help us understand what happened with our surname.

I joined this site in hopes to find someone that may help my family understand our heritage or at least help us understand the origins of our surname or how it morphed into O'Larey.  Also, help identify the possible connection between the surname Buckley and our O'Larey/O'Leary line.