Our first records of the O'Neal Family are from the coastal portion of the State of Maryland in the mid 1600's. (1) The O'Neals resided in Maryland for several generations, gradually moving eastward as the colonies grew, (2) (3) following (or leading) the general migration patterns of colonial families. During this time it seems the family moved pretty much as a group, making mass exoduses into the new frontier as a group.

During the late 1700's until the time of the Civil War (1860's) the family seems to have changed their migration pattern. They were making much larger moves in smaller family units. (4) (5) I've often wondered if this was a result of the Civil War sympathies of the 1800's or the struggle over state versus federal control.  Part of the family began moving south (4) and part north and west. (4) (5) (6).

By the 1900's the family had grown so large that it is virtually impossible to trace any kind of pattern.(7)

In 1975 the breakdown of O'Neal's in America was as follows:

Note that over 25 years have elapsed since these statistics were gathered. That means each of the families listed above has had time to produce a whole new generation of O'Neals who are probably busy right now reproducing!

The color of each state indicates how frequently you will find someone with this surname in each state. For instance, if a state is colored red, then 1 in 100 people (or more) in that state have the surname. Similarly, yellow means approximately 1 in 300 have the surname, green means 1 in 1000, and blue means 1 in 10,000 (or less).

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