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| Origins Available: |
| | Ireland |
The McGrattan surname was Mag Reachtain in Irish Gaelic.
The surname McGrattan was first found in Tipperary (Irish: Thiobraid Árann), established in the 13th century in South-central Ireland, in the province of Munster, where they held a family seat from very early times.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our McGrattan research. Another 149 words (11 lines of text) covering the years 1300, 1500 and 1700 are included under the topic Early McGrattan History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Pronunciation, rather than spelling, guided scribes and church officials when recording names during the Middle Ages. This practice often resulted in one person's name being recorded under several different spellings. Numerous spelling variations of the surname McGrattan are preserved in these old documents. The various spellings of the name that were found include Gratton, Grattan, MacGrattan and others.
More information is included under the topic Early McGrattan Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
The 19th century saw a great wave of Irish families leaving Ireland for the distant shores of North America and Australia. These families often left their homeland hungry, penniless, and destitute due to the policies of England. Those Irish immigrants that survived the long sea passage initially settled on the eastern seaboard of the continent. Some, however, moved north to a then infant Canada as United Empire Loyalists after ironically serving with the English in the American War of Independence. Others that remained in America later joined the westward migration in search of land. The greatest influx of Irish immigrants, though, came to North America during the Great Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Thousands left Ireland at this time for North America, and those who arrived were immediately put to work building railroads, coal mines, bridges, and canals. In fact, the foundations of today's powerful nations of the United States and Canada were to a larger degree built by the Irish. Archival documents indicate that members of the McGrattan family relocated to North American shores quite early: John Gratton, who settled in New York in 1820 and Edward Gratton landed in Philadelphia in 1862; Mary Gratton settled in Boston Massachusetts in 1848.