03/23/2021
Robert Easley (Robin or Robet) was the first Easley to immigrate to America. When the Huguenot Manikin Colony opened up after the turn of the 1700s, other Easleys followed. However, their connection to Robert was not direct.
The name, Easley, has many deviations in spelling and it would seem even an entirely different name when you consider the actual French spelling. Nevertheless, the evolution of the name Easley can be understood when considering the two cultures, French and English.
Few people were literate in the 1600s. When documentation was executed, the recorder listened to the name and then wrote what he thought he heard. Spelling was fluid. As a genealogy researcher, one soon becomes frustrated with the numerous name variations. In France, the word "de" means "of" in English. It is shortened to "d'". So, our ancestor was from the Noble House d' Escalis. In French, the last "s" is not sounded. So when you say Escalis, you can sort of hear the pronunciation of Easley.
It appears that those ancestors left behind in France are now called Descalis. This sounds like an entirely different name which would have caused confusion in early research. When Robert's family refugeed to England, and then Robert immigrated to Virginia, they attempted to keep the name by dropping the "de" or "d'". Here are the many different spellings you will see regarding our Easley lineage:
Easley, Easly, Esley, Esly, Easily, Easiley, Esle, Esli, Eastly, Estly, Estley, Easterly. Eisley is not our Easley line, but rather from Germany and unrelated.
On our Easley YDNA site, Family Tree DNA, there is an Eastman with a 12-marker match to our DNA. DNA research is showing even wider variations in names and spellings.
In France we have discovered the following name spellings and deviations: Escalis, Escales, d'Escalis, d'Escales, de Escalis, Descalis, Descales, Ecale, Ecalle.
Names change over time. For example we have a Harrell in our pedigree. The name changes from Harwell to Harrell at the time of ancestral immigration to America from England.
This Easley genealogy on this web site documents parental ancestry only. Adding siblings to an already voluminous pedigree is too much to manage. Even with parents only, our American pedigree is about 1500.
Oddly enough, research in England is often easier than the new America, where poor record keeping, wars and Manifest Destiny left intact and accurate records difficult to locate and access. Records in Great Britain and France were fairly well kept. With the world wide web, computer technology and genealogy software, the Easley family tree, albeit all family trees, are coming together in an amazing short period of time.
As a very broad, general and unsubstantiated comment, I can say that the Robert Easley's ancestors were Italian Swiss migrating to France in c1000-1400 A.D. Then in c1600, some of the Huguenots of the Noble House d'Escalis refugeed to England under the protection of the English King. However, with our other ancestors many migrated from France to Great Britain in about c1000-1400. Because, their sir names are almost all French and many were born in Normandy, we may conclude that many in our pedigree were Normans. In about c300-400 there were ancestors coming into France from the Nordics areas and Holland. Our direct Easleys probably came into the Italian-Swiss Alps from the Caucasus as early as 30,000 years ago or they migrated through the Nordic and down into Switzerland. This is loosely based on the YDNA projects. (See our very own data on the Easley Y-DNA.)
In my view, genealogy is made more alive and personal when history is introduced. I do hope you all enjoy the historical vignettes throughout the site.
It is my great pleasure to bring this work to our Easley family and to those interested in our genealogy.
Warmest regards,
Sonia Easle
Genealogy profile for Robert Easley
