Whaley Genealogy & History. Whaley is a British locational surname, from the villages of Whalley in Lancashire and Whaley in Derbyshire. Both likely come from the Old English hwealf, which means vault, arch or hill, and leah, for a clearing in a forest or a meadow.haley family history starts in 1185 with the recording of Adam de Walleg in the Pipe Rolls of Lancashire. Whaley genealogy lays claim to several notable persons, such as actor Michael Whaley and St. Louis Browns outfielder Bill Whaley.
1 America's first professional forester, and founder of the U.S. Forest Service. 2  Gifford Pinchot was the leader of the utiliatarian wing of the early conservation movement, who served under President Theodore Roosevelt and later as governor of Pennsylvania.  John Muir first met Gifford Pinchot in New York in 1893. Muir traveled with Pinchot and others with the National Forestry Commission surveying the problems of the western forest reserves. At that time, they became good friends.
An inquiry into the early roots of North American families reveals a number of immigrants bearing the name Jefferds or a variant listed above: Francis Gifford, who settled in Virginia in 1626; Edward Gifford, who landed in Virginia in 1635; John Gifford, who made his home in Boston in 1673; Samuel Gifford, who settled in Barbados, with his wife, two children, and servants in 1680.