Wiley of Cullentrya family history
For the Wiley family · put together September 2026

Wiley of Cullentry

Where our family came from, what the records say, and how sure we are of each step.

In the churchyard at Rathmolyon, County Meath, about thirty miles west of Dublin, a slab raised in the 1750s reads: Here lyeth the body of John Weily late of Cullenter who departed this life April ye 3 1749 aged 69. With him lie his wife Mary Brown and the son John who raised the stone and died in 1756. That is the earliest written trace of our family that we have found, and it puts the Weilys on the land at Cullentry before 1749.

They were still on the same land for two centuries after that. Between the 1770s and the 1790s a Dublin surveyor wrote onto the estate map, in a careful copperplate hand, Robert Weily and Widow Walker's Holding in Big Cullintree, called Heghlane, and under it the size of the farm, 183 acres and 2 roods. In 1825 the tithe collector listed William Weily Senior, William Weily Junior and Michael Weily at Heghlane. On New Year's Day 1835 William Junior took a new lease of the farm from the landlord at £178 a year, and in 1841 his widow Ellen took another. In 1854 Griffith's Valuation put three Wileys, William, Margaret and Ellen, on three lots side by side at Cullentry. The house was still there in 1976.

In 1857 a boy named William Wiley, born at Cullentry to a William Wiley and a Margaret Flynn, crossed to America. He grew up to be a roll-mill hand in Springfield, Illinois, then a puddler in East St Louis, and died in St Louis in 1913. He was the father of Robert John Wiley Sr (1888–1964), the ancestor every Wiley reading this shares: grandfather to the older generation, great-grandfather to the younger. His own father, William Wiley, was Chris's brick wall: roughly ten years of searching, with some wrong turns along the way, before the records on these pages fell into place.

This site lays out what we found: the farm, the documents, the people of our branch who stayed behind in Ireland, the Church of Ireland house that stayed on the land, the history they lived through, and an honest account of what we still cannot prove.

Handwritten map label reading Robert Weily and Widow Walker's Holding in Big Cullintree called Heghlane
“Robt Weily & Widw Walker’s Holding in Big Cullintree called Heghlane.” The surveyor’s label on the Rathmolyon estate map, drawn between about 1771 and 1798. The red numbers are a later rent note, pennies per acre. Image: National Library of Ireland, Longfield Map Collection, MS 21 F. 15 (014). Catalogue record

In one screen

WhoA Church of Ireland farming family at Cullentry from before 1749, who wrote their name Weily. Our branch is the Catholic one: William Weily (about 1796 to 1850) married twice at the chapel, and one of his family crossed in 1857.
WhereCullentry townland, on the farm called Heghlane, civil parish of Rathmolyon, barony of Moyfenrath Lower, County Meath. Our branch went to the chapel at Longwood, the next village along the road, and to the parish church at Rathmolyon, where the Catholic children were christened a second time.
WhenOn the land from at least 1749 to 1976 (Cullintra House); the last Weily burial at Rathcore was 1991. Our branch left in 1857. Of those who stayed, Robert died in Trim in 1915, and Michael's family left after 1887.
LandlordsBishop Bramhall and the Grahams in the 1600s, then the Rawdons, Earls of Moira, a Protestant family from County Down; then, from 1795, the Fowlers: an Archbishop of Dublin, then a Bishop of Ossory, then a country gentleman of Rahinston.
The crossing1857, by William II's own account in 1900. As a baby with his parents, or as a boy of seven sent to kin: the two readings are set out on The Family. No ship's list has been found.
AmericaSpringfield, Illinois by 1878. East St Louis by 1888. St Louis by 1899. Robert John Wiley Sr, the ancestor we all share, was born in East St Louis in 1888.

How sure are we?

Every claim on this site carries one of four grades. They are used the same way on every page.

CertainA record says it in so many words, and we have read the record ourselves, letter by letter.
Very likelyTwo or more independent records fit together and nothing contradicts them, but no single record says it outright.
LikelyThe simplest reading of the evidence. A different reading is possible and we say what it is.
PossibleA reasonable idea that we have not yet been able to test.

Applied to the big questions:

Very likelyThe Weilys of Cullentry are our family. A state record, a parish register, the landlord's own papers and the DNA of living cousins all point at one farm, and there was no other Weily family in the district for them to belong to.
Very likelyWilliam Weily of Cullentry, born about 1796 and buried there on 19 January 1850, who married Margaret Flynn about 1841, was William II's grandfather or his father.
Two readingsLikely William II's father was William I, a son of that William Weily by an earlier marriage, who married a second Margaret Flynn and crossed with the infant in 1857. Possible William II is himself the son christened at Rathmolyon on 2 January 1850, and crossed aged seven without his parents. The two readings, and the four records that would decide between them, are set out on The Family.
CertainThe house was at Cullentry by 1749 and was Church of Ireland. Likely Our William Weily descended from John Weily junior (1722-56) through John or George of the 1802 list, as a grandson through George or a great-grandson through John.
LikelyThe family came to Meath from the Rawdons' country in Ulster, Antrim and Down, before 1700. Possible that they were the Quaker Wylys of Aghalee or the Weillys of Comber; the tests are on the open questions page.

Three kinds of writing on this site

We have tried never to blur what the records say with what we think, or with what we picture. The page layout tells them apart.

Plain text is documented. It comes from a record we have read, or from the research files, and it carries a source.
Blue panels are historical background: what life was like for people in that place and time, drawn from historians and county histories. They are about the times, not specifically about our family.
Sand-coloured panels, in italics, are labelled “We imagine”. They are our own picture of what a moment might have been like. Nothing in them is evidence.

Read it in order

  1. 2The Farm at HeghlaneThe estate map: who held what, the 183 acres, the Flynns along the road to Longwood chapel.
  2. 3The RecordsOne card per document, from a 1749 gravestone to the 1913 death certificate, each with a grade.
  3. 4The FamilyJohn Weily of 1749 to the living generations, then Grace, Robert and Michael, the family our branch left behind.
  4. 5The House That StayedThe Church of Ireland Weilys: John of Maryville, Charles of Cullintra House, the farm to 1976, and the cousins who went to Pennsylvania and Tasmania.
  5. 6Ireland ThenThe Pale, tenant farming, landlords and leases, tithes, the Famine, and why a family in our branch's position left.
  6. 7The Crossing and Springfield1857 to 1913: the rolling mills, the parishes, East St Louis, St Louis.
  7. 8What We Still Don't KnowTwo gaps from the first list closed in September and one question sharpened. The rest, stated plainly, with the tests that would close them.
  8. 9How We Found ItTen years and some wrong turns, then DNA, one civil record, a register, a map; then a month of gravestones, state registers and one census form. How Chris broke the wall.
  9. 10SourcesEvery record, with its archive reference and a link.
  10. 11Working PedigreeThe technical chart, with every fact linked to its record.