Thank you for visiting our web page, the virtual home of the Irish Curley Family originating in Athlone, Ireland (counties Roscommon and Westmeath) and the surrounding area. While there are other Curley families found in Ireland and elsewhere not paternally related to this main branch, this site pertains exclusively to the Athlone Curley branch whose ancient origins most likely lie in Scandinavia or Normandy although an ancient Irish origin cannot be ruled out. Our Curley lineage has a shared male ancestor with many other Irish surname matches, and these matches are quite distant, perhaps having a connection from 800 to 1100 to the shared ancestor. This seems to indicate a long standing presence in Ireland and points to a period of arrival that could encompass the Viking period in Ireland or the later Norman invasion.

Since our research started several years ago, we have worked with YDNA testing in an effort to better understand this family's ancestral origins, further back than their known existence in Ireland, which goes back to at least 1100 to 1400 AD. Through male lineage YDNA testing, we've already discovered the YDNA Haplogroup for our Curley lineage and it appears this group has been using the Curley surname since at least the early 1600s or possibly even earlier. Currently the L1066 (recent testing has found the more recent SNP named A6119) Athlone Curleys appear to be the genetic group that has been using the Curley surname for the longest amount of time and are the original Curley lineage from Central Ireland.  Other Curley lineages have been discovered but are not paternally related to the main "Athlone" Curley group and it's possible their connection to the Curley surname comes from another point of origin.

*DNA testing continues to connect descendants of the Athlone to New York/New Jersey Curley family.  The type of testing that has connected several family lines separated by over 125+ years is the autosomal DNA testing offered by Family Tree DNA (their Family Finder test) and Ancestry.com.  These tests are desinged to match relations from both the maternal and paternal sides of the family through shared ancestors going as far back as perhaps 6 to 8 generations or possibly more.  In addition to identifying the relatives found that have also taken the test, it provides estimates for the level of the relationship, for example 1st cousin, 2nd cousin, parent/child, aunt/uncle, etc.

We are in a new age now where we can use YDNA testing to verify which descendants are related to this specific Curley lineage and because of the testing that's been completed thus far, we know there are several paternally unrelated Curley lineages in existence.  In fact, there are at least three main Curley lineages in Central Ireland alone, that do not share a common male ancestor as their point of origin or at least, not within at least the past 3000 plus years.

A main goal is to try and determine the L1066 Curley's history prior to the 1500-1600 time frame. We now know that at least some of our ancient ancestors were in Scotland around 1400 BCE thanks to recent ancient remains DNA testing however that leaves a big mystery as to how and when they arrived in Ireland. Recently, ancient remains discovered on the island of Oland, Sweden were also found to be positive for our L1066 SNP. These were viking remains estimated to be from approximately 850 AD. There are over 20 branches of L1066 that have been discovered thus far, and each branch is separated from the other by over 3000 years to the shared ancestor. In other words, our Curley L1066 branch is not related to any other L1066 branch for at least 3000+ years. Picture a man walking around back on the European continent 3500 years ago who acquired the YDNA L1066 SNP mutation and within a few generations, this man had 20+ male descendants, each one passed down the L1066 mutation and each one of them having a lineage that still exists today, that gives an idea of how L1066 and it's descendants are connected.