The Family Name

Family names started in the Middle Ages as serfdom was giving way to freeholding, Polly, with or without the “e” was baptismal for “the son of Paul” (a variant of Pawley, Pauley or Pauly). It was also a variant Poilley and Pulley. Some Polleys were named for the Provence of Poilley in Orleans, France from whence they originated. The name appears at least as early as the sixteenth century where in 1574 Robert Polley and Grace Goodaye obtained a marriage license in London, England. Almost all of the Polleys of eastern Kentucky spell their name without the “e”. The descendants of Joseph Polley spell their name Pauley (from My Ancestors, Our Ancestors, Your Ancestors by Robert Polley).

Although the Pauley spelling of the last name is now commonplace, early records show some interesting variations. Most commonly it is found as either Polly or Polley but there is also Pawly, Pauly, etc. Evidence of the Pauley spelling is found frequently in Europe and Great Britain. The best explanation for the variety of spellings in Colonial America is that oftentimes our ancestors were not very literate and the recorders of the information merely guessed at the spelling. Sometimes multiple spellings are found in different records for the same person. This resulted, however, in groups of descendants from Edward Polly, using each of the three spellings. This does cause some problems for today’s researchers! So today there are three branches of descendants from Edward, each using one of the three spelling variations.

Interestingly, at the time of the federal census in April 1930, members of two branches of this family were living less than fifteen miles apart in central Illinois. I have to wonder if they knew each other and recognized the similarity in their names. My grandfather, Ira Lee Pauley, Sr. and his wife Thelma were living in Tyrone Township, Franklin County, where he was a coal miner.  John Woodford Polley (my fourth cousin 4x removed) and his family lived in St. Johns Village, on the Perry County/Franklin County border (west side of Franklin Co.) and was also a coal miner, although listed as not working at the time of the census enumeration. John was about 25 years older than Ira but they were distant cousins.