Mackey Genealogy - PA, VA and NC

Marty and Karla Grant

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Mackey Genealogy - PA, VA and Western NC

Welcome to my Mackey genealogy pages. I am interested in the Mackey surname in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Western North Carolina.

Mackey has several common variants which I’m also interested in, including: McKay, McKee, McKey, etc.

It’s a surname with deep roots in Ireland and Scotland. While it’s common to pronounce the name Mac-kee, (rhymes with lackey), in older times the surname was often pronounced Mac-eye, and still is in some cases. There are other pronunciations as well, such as starting with the Mick sound instead of Mack.

Mackey didn’t make the top 1000 most common surnames in America in 2000 or 2010. However, McKee was 717^th in 2000, and 780^th in 2010. McKay was 853^rd in 2000, and 895^th in 2010.

I have two Mackey lines, both in western North Carolina rather close to each other. I don’t know if they are related, but could be.

Line 1, Albemarle Co., VA and Rutherford Co., NC

My most recent Mackey ancestor is my five times great grandmother Martha Mackey (1755/60-1850). She married Andrew Grant in 1788 in Rutherford Co., NC. They lived there until his death ca 1825. Martha, and most of their children left Rutherford, many going first to Burke (later Yancey, later Mitchell, now Avery) County, North Carolina for a short period, then to Macon Co., NC where Martha died in 1850. Her brief stay in the Three Mile Creek area of old Burke Co., NC put her very close to my other Mackey line, which might not be a coincidence. Her parents are unproven, but I strongly suspect she’s a child of:

Alexander Mackey (Sr) (d 1774) of Albemarle Co., VA and his second wife (probably). Alexander’s sons Alexander Jr, and Joel Mackey both went to western NC.

Line 2, Pennsylvania and Burke Co., NC.

My most recent Mackey ancestor on this line is my five times great grandmother Ann Mackey (1770/74-1842). She married William Wilson in Feb 1799 in Burke Co., NC. They lived in the Linville section of old Burke Co., NC very, very close to where my other Mackey ancestor, Martha Mackey Grant, lived in the 1820s and 1830s. That could be a coincidence, or perhaps not. Ann Mackey is a proven daughter of:

Samuel Mackey (1730s-1831). Samuel was somewhere in Pennsylvania in the 1770s and 1780s then moved to the Linville area of Burke Co., NC where he remained until his death in 1831. I haven’t yet found the name of his wife. I don’t know who his parents were, but he seems to be a brother of John, Thomas and William Mackey.

Revised: March 2, 2026

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