-=> Quoting Jame Clay to Miles Maxted on 23 Oct 10  11:02:06 <=-   
      
    JC> variation, on my fathers side, of "Claye";  by tradition, we (my side   
    JC> of the Clay family here in the States) trace our lineage back to a   
    JC> "John Claye" of Derby, by way of a John Thomas Clay who come over to   
    JC> the "Virgina Colony" in the early 1600's.  The family has spread out   
    JC> all of the place here since then...    
      
   Part of my heritage is from those early English that settled "Virginia   
   Colony" also... but no Clays there as far as I remember.  Would Henry   
   Clay, of KY, who served in the House in the early 1800's, have been one   
   of your family?   
      
    JC> I didn't know but vaguely thought that the family name might have   
    JC> derived from someone who worked with clay or who was from some area   
    JC> known for the mineral.  But then I ran across someone here with the   
    JC> family name of "Klae", which certainly sounds the same and appears to   
    JC> come from mainland Europe...  Which makes me wonder about just how   
    JC> long the "Claye's" had been around, and about Normans...    
      
   Klae sounds like it could be from Nederlands... but of course, some   
   surnames developed along parallel lines... ;)   
      
   ttyl      neb   
      
   ... "Patience ... yeah ... yeah ... how long will *that* take?"   
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