Magee Coat of Arms, Family Crest and Magee Family History

Magee Family History

The family history of the ancient name Magee was found in the irishsurnames.com archives. The names Magee and McGee originated in Ulster Province in Ireland. It has been proposed that some of the Ulster Magees are of Scottish extraction, having come to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the early seventeenth century. There are however, Magee families of Gaelic Irish origin also and they belong to the country on the borders of Counties Donegal and Tyrone. In early mediaeval times a McGee was Chief of a sept in County Westmeath, but these were dispersed after the twelfth century Anglo-Norman invasion. The very early history of these families is thus rather obscure.

A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. It is also the case that many Irish septs or clans that are related often belong to a larger groups, sometimes called tribes. For example the 'Tribes of Galway' consisted of fourteen distinct families. The 'Tribes of Kilkenny' were ten families, etc.

Bearers of the name however, were prominent in various phases of Irish life in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, most hailing from the Northern Ulster Counties. The Magee family crest (or coat of arms) came into existence many centuries ago. The process of creating these coats of arms began as early as the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this, including Ireland. The new more formalized art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own family crest, coat of arms, including Magee descendants.