The Neely project is set up to establish the various lines of Neelys that immigrated from N. Ireland to America beginning in the early 1700's as well as other parts of the world. Several early Neely immigrants have been identified through genealogy by Neely researchers and we hope to identify some of the family lines by YDNA testing known American descendants of these early immigrants as well as those still living in Ireland. A longer term objective is to determine where the Neelys originated. There are many spelling variations of the Neely surname group with the most common being Neeley, Neelly and Nealy. Also names that sound similar, including variations seen in some Pre-American Revolution German immigrants to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, including: Neligh, Nelich, Nelig, and Naley. (Some of these lines ended up anglicized to Neely.) All kits with a Y-DNA test and one of these surnames, or having Y-DNA matches to a Neely variant surname are welcome to join this project.