I have done a little exercise of extracting Cat*ley from the US Census Records which
comprises some 740 names and then making a comparison to see how many fall into the
"known Cat*ley tree" category.
These "knowns" total some 333 entries and relate to members of the following
trees :-
Thomas of Bottesford
Stevan of Normanton
Robert of Garforth
Edmund of Bilton
John of Nova Scotia
Emery of Midsomer Norton
James of Barley
John of Leeds
The most predominant trees by far, are those of Robert of Garforth and Edmund of Bilton
and to a lesser extent, Emery of MSN who were all coal mining families where key elements
emigrated to the Pennsylvania coalfields in search of better prospects.
Whilst the "knowns" comprise around 45% of the total it was a surprise to learn
that about 20% of the total consist of an African-American content. I had one such family
already identified (James of Mississippi) but this tree only accounts for a small portion.
Exactly why/how they adopted Catley (there are some enumerated as Cattley) is a mystery
with the exception of James of Mississippi where the family concerned have already given
me the answer.
The remaining 35% "unknowns" concern white Europeans where interestingly the
majority seem to have been born in the Southern American States although there are a
number who give their place of birth as England.
I do not yet have access to the American Records of Birth and have had to rely on others
to do some work for me here in attempting to pinpoint individuals but the results are
disappointing with very few births matching the census details.
If anybody is interested in looking a bit deeper and seeing if more positive
identifications can be made, I am happy to send you my extract which is in plain Excel and
covers 14 census less of course the 1890 enumeration which is not available.
Regards
Tim Cattley