Maxwell Coat of Arms, Family Crest and Maxwell Family History

Maxwell Family History

The ancient origin of the name Maxwell was found in the irishsurnames.com archives. The great border castle of Caerlaverock was long the seat of the Maxwell Chiefs in Scotland. These ancient families date back as far as 1241 when Sir John Maxwell was Chamberlain of Scotland.

In Ireland this name and its variants were introduced into Ulster Province by settlers who arrived from England and Scotland, especially during the seventeenth century. During the 'Plantations of Ireland' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ireland was colonized by the English Crown with this period marking the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland. This period brought an influx of settlers into the country but, unlike the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century that resulted in a full integration into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own distinct identity.

Maxwell is also an occasional variant of the names Mescel and Miskell which are both derived from the native Gaelic O'Mesicill sept that was located in Counties Clare and Galway.

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.

O'Mescall is another variant.The Maxwell 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 Maxwell descendants.