Colgrove History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

• Origins Available:
• England
• Ireland

While the Anglicized versions of Irish names are familiar to most people, all Irish names have a long and proud Gaelic heritage that is often unknown. The original Gaelic form of the name Colgrove is "O Cuileagain."

Early Origins of the Colgrove family

The surname Colgrove was first found in County Londonderry (Irish: Doire), a Northern Irish county also known as Derry, in the province of Ulster, where they held a family seat from ancient times.

Important Dates for the Colgrove family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Colgrove research. Another 112 words (8 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Colgrove History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Colgrove Spelling Variations

The recording of names in Ireland in the Middle Ages was an inconsistent endeavor at best. The many regional dialects and the predominate illiteracy would have made common surnames appear unrelated to the scribes of the period. Research into the name Colgrove revealed spelling variations, including Culligan, Colligan, Quilligan, O'Quilligan, O'Culligan, O'Colligan, Coligan, Culigan, Colgan and many more.

Early Notables of the Colgrove family (pre 1700)

More information is included under the topic Early Colgrove Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Colgrove family

In the late 18th century, Irish families began emigrating to North America in the search of a plot of land to call their own. This pattern of emigration grew steadily until the 1840s when the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s cause thousands of Irish to flee the death and disease that accompanied the disaster. Those that made it alive to the shores of the United States and British North America (later to become Canada) were, however, instrumental in the development of those two powerful nations. Many of these Irish immigrants proudly bore the name of Colgrove: Arthur, Bernard, and Thomas Colligan, who arrived in Philadelphia between 1640 to 1670; as well as John, Pat and Simon Culligan, who arrived in Quebec in 1839..