Origin of the Name McGonagle
The
McGonagle family history 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 McGonagle
include McGonigle, Magonagle, Gonigal and MacConigly. These names are derived from the Gaelic MagCongail sept that was located in Counties Donegal and Derry in the North of Ireland . This sept was counted among the warlike followers of O'Donnell.
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 an erenagh family and their Church was at Killaghtee. In the diocese of Raphoe two bishops of the name are recorded in the year 1589. Some bearers of the Gaelic MacCongaile sept of County Donegal also anglicized their name as McGonagle as well as MacConigly.
The McGonagle 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 McGonagle descendants.