O'Hickey History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

• Origins Available:
• Ireland

Early Origins of the O'Hickey family

Early History of the O'Hickey family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our O'Hickey research. Another 89 words (6 lines of text) covering the years 1014 and 1641 are included under the topic Early O'Hickey History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

O'Hickey Spelling Variations

During the Middle Ages exact spellings for people's name did not exist. It was up to the literate scribe that was recording a person's name to decide how to spell his name. Names, therefore, often had many spelling variations. The variations of the name O'Hickey include: Hickey, Hickie, O'Hickey, O'Hickie, Hicky and others.

Early Notables of the O'Hickey family

Notable among the family name at this time was Antony Hickey (d. 1641), Irish theologian who belonged to the Irish family of h-Icidhe, of co. Clare, many members of which practised medicine during some generations. "Hickey projected publications on the history and hagiography of Ireland, for which his acquirements and...
Another 50 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early O'Hickey Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the O'Hickey family

Under the rule of England, land ownership in Ireland changed dramatically, and many native Irish families found themselves renting out land to farm from absentee owners. This was one of the prime reasons that immigration to North America began in the late 18th century: Irish farmers dreamed of owning their own parcel of land to work for themselves. At this point, the immigrants were at least of modest means for the passage across the Atlantic was often quite dear. In the 1840s the Great Potato Famine created an exodus of people of quite different means. These people were most often destitute: they either sold anything they had to gain a passage or they were sponsored by philanthropic societies. Many of these immigrants were sick from disease and starvation: as a result many did not survive the long transatlantic journey. Although those settlers that did survive were often despised and discriminated against by people already established in these nations, they were critical to rapid development of the powerful industrial nations of the United States and the country that would later become known as Canada. An examination of immigration and passenger lists shows many persons bearing the name of O'Hickey or one of its variants: James Hickey settled in Boston in 1768; Catharine Hickey settled in Pennsylvania in 1772; Daniel, Denis, Edward, James, John, Lawrence, Michael, Patrick, Thomas, and William Hickey arrived in Pennsylvania between 1840 and 1855. In Newfoundland, William Hickey settled in St. John's in 1755.