McDevitt Coat of Arms, Family Crest and McDevitt Family History

McDevitt Family History

The ancient origin of the name McDevitt was found in the irishsurnames.com archives. The name McDevitt is derived from the native Gaelic MacDaibheid sept that was located in Counties Donegal and Derry in the very north-western part of Ireland.

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.

This Gaelic name has a number of different anglicized forms including McDavitt and Davison, but McDaid is the most often recorded name of these variants. These names all translate from their original Gaelic form as 'son of David' and in modern times can still be found in some numbers in their original homeland territories. The McDevitt 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 McDevitt descendants.