Origin of the Name McGlade
The ancient history of the name
McGlade was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name McGlade
include Gladdery, Gladdery, Glade, McGlathery, McLeod and McCloud. This name in Irish is MagLeid and MacGleadra and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of these Gaelic names. This sept came from County 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. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
They were a sept of the Ui Maine and from the ancient book 'Tribes and Customs of the Hy Many' we know they originate in Galway . From Connacht they migrated Northwards to County Donegal to such an extent that today hardly any of the name are found in their original habitat. The name is recorded as O'Gladdery in the Tyrone Hearth Money Rolls of 1664.
The McGlade coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all McGlade descendants.