Origin of the Name Ramsey
The origin of the name
Ramsey was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. The names Ramsey and Ramsay are usually of Scottish origin and date back to when Simon de Ramsay lived in the Lothians in the year 1140. Hi descendant William de Ramsay swore fealty to King Edward I in 1296. In 1338 his son, Alexander, defended Dunbar against the English, and was appointed Sheriff of Teviotdale. This offended William Douglas, Knight, of Liddesdale, who imprisoned Ramsay, starving him to death in Hermitage Castle. His descendant, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey, had a son, Alexander, who carried the main line of the family. Dalhousie Castle, near Edinburgh, is the seat of the Ramsays.
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. It was the 'Plantations of Ireland ' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland . While the influx of settlers in the wake of the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century 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.
The Ramsey 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 Ramsey descendants.