I thought my last name was a basic British but according to forebears.io its most prevalent in India?
I’m well aware of that but Indians did not take British surnames. If anything it might be a angelicized version of a Bengali surname from what I’ve researched. There’s a high population of Bengali people in Kolkata, India which is one of the Indian cities where indentured servants were brought from to my home country and then it was angelicized at that point but I don’t know much about my family history.British ruled India.
I’m well aware of that but Indians did not British surnames. If anything it might be a angelicized version of a Bengali surname from what I’ve researched. There’s a high population of Bengali people in Kolkata, India which is one of the Indian cities where indentured servants were brought from to my home country and then it was angelicized at that point but I don’t know much about my family history.
My surname is Irish Gaelic and rather uncommon. They say only 5,000 people in America have this surname, but it may just be the way we spell it. It has dozens of different spellings and with the way we spell it, you can pronounce it two different ways. I don't know what ancestor we get the name from. We're in Mississippi but they say most people with this surname live in South Carolina. And I think in South Carolina, there's a plantation with the same name,using the spelling we use. So I haven't been able to connect the dots.
However, for many other surnames in my family, they all trace back to a white male ancestor that was a slaver or the son of a plantation owner.
The surname I've been able to trace the farthest back is the Magee to MacGhee, to MacGehee, McGehee, to McGhee, etc. (going back from Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia) all the way back to McGregor to Clan Gregor of Argyll, Highland Scotland in the 1500s. The most interesting thing about them is that they were called "the children of the mist," and they got exiled from Scotland in the early 1600s, that's why they ran away to Virginia.
Another surname I trace pretty far back comes from Sussex, England. Our ancestor changed the spelling of the name when he migrated from there to Virginia around the 1620s. It's a Germanic name.
My paternal great grandmother was a McGee until she married my great grandfather of whom I carry his German surname that has been Anglicized.
Were they Southern Mississippi/Louisiana Magees? Those are the most recent ones I'm related to.
She was born in Alabama. That's all I know.
Interesting. One of my 3rd great-grandmothers was a Magee, born in Alabama. Does the name Elizabeth Magee, wife of Elezar/Lezor Bickham mean anything?
I wish I could say that it does but it doesn't. To be honest I'm not actually sure how she became a Mcgee. My great great grandmother name was Annie Ross/Davis. I found one record that stated Annie was listed as a MaGee so I don't know if she was married to one or what the situation was. I suspect my great grandmother's father is not who the census has listed. All the other children surname was Davis. You know how that goes...
Sometimes it can be tricky with surnames because of marriage, let me explain what I have noticed... I'm noticing that when a woman remarries sometimes her children still in the household take on the new husband's surname. For example my ggg-grandmother married 3 times. Three of her children were by the first husband. My gg-grandmother was the oldest and when she married she had her father's surname. First husband dies and she remarries, the 2 sons from the first marriage are still in the household and they all take on 2nd husband's surname. The sons marry with the second husband's surname. There is also a biological child(a girl) by the second husband. Second husband dies, ggg-grandma remarries and the girl child from husband #2 is still in the household so she winds up with the 3rd husband's surname.
If you haven't found a marriage to a McGee, then perhaps it was because of a similar situation like above?
Family lore says ours in made up our great grand was on the run.
I was just wondering has anyone been able to?