According to the DNA study the Coffee and Coffey families are not realted at least as far back as 1700. The progenitors of each family came from different parts of Ireland and settled indifferent parts of America. Coffee surname came from Ulster in Northern Ireland (Scots-Irish Protestants) and Coffey surname seems to have originated in County Cork in Southern Ireland, also Protestants. The Scots-Irish were immigrants to Northern Ireland (Ulster) from Scotland by an invitation of King James of England and have have been fighting the native Irish Catholics ever since. Only 3% of the Irish are Protestants today. They are depicted by the "Orange" in the tri-color flag of Ireland. White indicates peace and green indicates native Irish Catholics.

The original spelling of the Coffee surname was Coffey as far back as 1500s. The Irish origin of Coffee/Coffey surname was originally O'Cobhthaidh or O'Coffey meaning "Of the family of Cobhthaidh." Cobhthaidh itself is a personal name derived from the Gaelic Cobthach, meaning "Victorious." Historians agree that Cobhtaidh Fion (Fair-Haired Victor) was living in County Cork, Ireland about the beginning of the 1600s. He was descended from Ithe, the son of Breghan, King of Spain, and uncle of Milesius of Spain. Ithe settled in what is now Munster, Ireland,long before the beginning of the Christian Era. Ithe was the father of Fothach Argthach,the one hundred and eighteenth Monarch of Ireland,who was slain in the year 285 A.D. Cobhtaidh Fion, ancestor of the Coffey surname, was the thirteenth indirect descent from Aongus, brother of Fothach Argthach.

There are three Coffees known to have arrived in America between 1700 and 1740. One disapeared from history and probably died of disease, and one resettled on the island of Burmuda and the third was Peter Coffee (1700-1771), who was my g.g.g.g.g.grandffather. He was the progenitor of my Coffee family in America and was an Scots-Irish Ulsterman from Northern Ireland. In 1730, Peter Coffee arrived at the Newport docks on the prison galley "Forward" from Liverpool England. Peter spent two years on the prison ship in Liverpool harbor while waiting for the vessel to fill with passengers and prisoners before sailing to America. No one knows what he was inprison for. It could have been some this as simple as stealing a loaf of bread or spitting on a Englishman.

After arriving in Newport, Peter Coffee spent a month or two in Potomac Prison before being released as a indentured laborer. In 1735, he became the overseer on the Matthews tobacco plantation in Prince Edward County Virginia. The 1838 Court records in Prince Edward County indicate he was fined for abusing a servant woman. He married the daughter of the plantation owner, Susannah Matthews, in 1740 and later became master of the plantation and had 11 children.