From my research it is my belief our 
Corleys probably called Karle? came from out 
of Persia around 800 AD then to Germany to 
England to Whales by the late 1500s. Then by 
way of Ireland to America by the early 1600s. 

Our American immigrant was;
 
RICHARD CORLEY, was born BEF. 1655, 
and died ABT. 1708 in Hanover County, VA 

Father of;
RICHARD CORLEY, II was born ABT. 1673. 
He married AUSTIN?

Father of;
JOHN CORLEY, born ABT. 1700, Hanover 
County, Virginia; died January 1743, Orange 
County, Virginia. Married ?

Father of;
JOHN CORLEY, II born ABT. 1736, Hanover 
CO. VA Granville Co. NC died BEF. May 1805, 
AFT. Jul 1802, Edgefield Co. SC married ABT 
1751, [1st] [2nd], Mary [4th]

Father of;
Abner Corley born 10 April 1758, Bute Co. NC 
died 1844 Greensburg, SC married ABT 1783 
Patience Perry daughter of Plooy Perry

Father of;
Willis B. Corley born 1787 SC died BEF. 1870 
married c. 1814 SC Nancy ? born 1786 in Ireland. 
Died BEF. 1870?

Father of;
Elbert D. Corley born 1815 SC died AFT 1870 
Henry Co., Ga.  Married Nov. 16, 1838 Fayette 
Co., Ga. Mary Ann Moore, daughter of William 
Moore, died AFT. 1898 Henry Co. Ga.

Father of;
William Asmon Corley born 1843 died July 29, 
1914 Henry Co., Ga. married 2nd Mary Elizabeth 
Callaway. Daughter Jackson and Mary Elizabeth 
Morgan Callaway.

Father of;
William Dauphus Corley born July 23, 1884 died 
May 11, 1967 married Dec. 12, 1903 Fanny Puckett, 
born Aug. 8, 1887 died Jan. 10, 1923 Henry Co., 
Ga. daughter of John Riley and Harriett LuDella 
Pattillo Puckett.

Finding Grandma Patience
 
Those of us who dabble in family research 
will sooner or later have an experience such 
as this one I recently had. It is but one of 
many for me, call it coincidence, luck or 
what ever. For myself and I’m sure many of 
fellow researchers, we have our own idea.

I had not found much information on our five 
times Great-grandfather Abner Corley. His 
Revolutionary War record was well documented 
but other than birth and death dates and 
locations, there wasn’t much to go on. I had 
found some of his children including his son, 
Willis from whom we descended. 
You learn early in family research that you 
don’t or can’t give up. For some day you 
will pick up a book, visit a Genealogy web 
site or get a phone call from a stranger that 
will reveal what your are looking for. 
You have to keep going back to the genealogy 
library to check on the new books and material 
that’s come in. You have to keep checking back 
on the web sites to see if someone has posted 
new information that will help you. A couple 
of months ago I was at the library and some 
new books were in. In one that listed land 
sale transactions I found several incidents 
where Abner Corley had bought and sold land. 
On some of them it showed where Abner’s wife 
Patience Corley had signed over the property, 
as it was apart of her dowry. So now I know 
what Abner’s wifes, our five times great grand-
mother’s, first name was.  I spent some time 
looking back over my material, searching the 
many web sites for South Carolina for a 
connection. I couldn’t find anything new and 
laid it aside for the time being. 
A few months had past and as I was preparing 
our W. D. Corley line above I came to Abner 
and filling in his info, typing in Patience’s 
name saying to myself, Grandma why don’t you 
tell me who you are? I sure would like to know. 
I worked on til it was getting late and I was 
about to turn off my computer. 
I was on a web site that had links to South 
Carolina genealogy and though I had gotten 
very weary I went on and clicked on the link 
and the site came up on my screen. I filled 
in the info on who I wanted to look for. For 
no particular reason I typed in Abner Corley. 
It took me to another site that had some info 
that I already had. Then I clicked on the last 
link and up came this web site on the Watson 
Family. This was something new but I had seen 
the name with Abner’s before. 
Reading on I found that this was Abner’s 
Company Officer in the Rev. War and evidently 
the families were close for it would also 
reveal that Abner and several of his family 
are buried in the Watson family cemetery. 
This info is like finding gold for a researcher 
but even more so was that this post told me 
that Abner was the son-in-law of Plooy Perry. 
That grandma Patience was the daughter of Plooy 
Perry. I stayed up another hour researching our 
new Perry line and from what I have found so 
far they are gong to be very interesting. If 
what I found holds up, and I think it will, one 
of our grandfathers from this line received a 
Revolutionary War land grant for 1500 acres in 
southern Georgia as in Perry, Ga. He must have 
been a high-ranking officer to receive that much 
land. 
For some reason I have a strong feeling that 
Abner’s mother was a Watson, maybe I should ask??

Here is the web site I mentioned, check it out,
WATSON