Origin of the Name Magee
The
Magee family history was found in the allfamilycrests.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. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
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 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 Magee descendants.