James (McKee) Mackey (abt. 1639 - abt. 1719)

Kevin, Ancestry is not a source and trees on it are littered with errors. An error repeated and copied dozens of times is still an error. Whoever Alexander Mckee was, he was not a known son of James Mackay of Kirktomy. Mackee /Mckee is a Lowland miss-spelling of Mackay, Your DNA matches could be through any shared ancestors. Mackay family sources make no mention of a son Alexander so sorry these are not the same man.

you are right Please correct I have made a mistake

According to what the author has been able to learn, the facts and circumstances in these very early years, documented in somewhat more abundant fashion than other material that crossed his desk in the past five years, proclaim the descent of the line of the Rushville, Illinois, McKees, which is the author’s (of Book of McKees) line, thus:

1. Alexander McKee, who fought at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, near Drogheda in East Ireland, was an officer of William, Prince of Orange, according to a genealogical article quoted a few pages hence. There can be little doubt that he and his brothers belonged to the Strathnaver MacKays, because one of them who died in 1706 and was buried at Carncastle in Antrim caused arms containing the three bears’ head of Lord Reay to be carved on his monument. Unfortunately that particular monument has either weathered away or crumbled, for it no longer exists at Carncastle. However, the hiatus is bridged by the act of the Ulster King of Arms, Sir Neville Wilkinson, who confirmed arms in 1912 to a descendant, John Reginald McKee, in Ireland. They were grounded on the arms claimed on the 1706 monument of which either a potograph or a drawing probably existed in 1912. In 1956, the late King of Arms in Ireland, Sir Gerald Wollaston, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., granted arms similarly grounded, and containing the three bears’ heads as their principal charge, to another descendant of one of the four McKee brothers who were Boyne veterans, H. Malcom McKee of Bangor, North Ireland.

A monument bearing the date of 1756 also stodd in the churchyard at Carncastle, bearing the name of a boy Robert McKee and the same Mackay arms. The author discovered a drawing of these arms in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Vol VI, No. 1, p. 240, January 1900. They are reproduced in Book of McKee. Thus, we possess sound proof that the four McKee brothers who fought at the Boyne considered themselves part of the Strathnaver and Reay branch of the Clan Mackay, and moreover believed themselves entitled to adopt the clan’s armoral bearings. Lord Reay has been the title borne by the head of this branch of the Mackays since 1628. The proof is already probably as complete as it will ever be that the four McKee brothers were younger sons of that branch.