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Cathy, thanks for the link, the following is from the page of the link and seems to indicate yet a THIRD Thomas / Alexander McKee Pennsylvania family:
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.
If Alexander McKee and his son Thomas came to America as early as 1707 which one account indicates, then it is reasonable to suppose that Thomas was the eldest son and fourteen to eighteen years of age at the time. We do find persuasive evidence that they arrived sometime between 1707 and 1734, and we know that Alexander, the Boyne veteran, died in 1740. The 1707 date is suggested from an article in American Biography (1928), The American Historical Society, Inc., Vol 31, p. 181, which is quoted further on in this chapter.
On the other hand, according to information supplied by the Genealogical Section of the State Library of Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania:
Alexander McKee, born about 1665, died 1740. lived in County Antrim, Ireland. Came to America and settled in Donegal, Lancaster County, prior to 1735. His son Thomas McKee was born in Ireland about 1695, and came to America with his father; and with them was Alexander, young son of Thomas. Thomas was a farmer and Indian trader. He died in Harrisburg in 1770 (actually 1769 as his son Alexander was his administrator when he appreared in Orphans Court, Dec 6, 1769) He married first in Ireland with issue. He married next an Indian woman, with issue. (As will appear elsewhere, James McKee was one of the children of this marriage, and since Mrs Fredrick in her American Revolutionary soldiers of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, opined that James McKee was in some way related to Hugh McKee, the latter and the son of the former, James McKee, Junior, having married Nesbitt sisters, it is the authors conclusion that Hugh McKee and James McKee, Sr were probably brothers, and sons of Thomas McKee of McKee’s Half Falls. Their half-brother (Colonel) Alexander McKee may have been from an Irish or Scot mother, one account having him born in Ireland circa 1720, although two other accounts say or imply Alexander was born in America. However, James McKee and Hugh McKee would have been borne by Thomas McKee’s second wife, a Shawnee girl; of course they could have been brothers of Thomas, as Alexander McKee Sr.’s will shows he had other children) Children of his Irish wife: Alexander, born in Ireland about 1720, died 1799. Alexander married an Indian woman with issue. Children by (Thomas McKees) second marriage: Catherine, married Greydon, issue: Elizabeth; Nancy; James born 1755, died 1834; married first an Indian woman, with issue; married second, Elizabeth Verner (1769-1809) with issue”.
In the above mentioned biographical sketch in American Biography - the statement is made that Thomas McKee’s father, who although unnamed in that particular sketch is named in the Eleanor Guthrie Reed papers reposing in the State Library at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as Alexander McKee (a) died after engaging for 35 years in the fur-trading business with his son Thomas McKee ; and, (b) that Thomas McKee thereafter “continued the business at McKees half Falls, in what is now Snyder County Pennsylvania, where he established a trading store. He had his business at this place in 1742, although it is believed that he had established a branch of his father’s business there six years before his death”.
This would date th" send of pasted portion.
Those wishing to read further may link on Cathy's message that I replied to here. Sure would be good to have some of the McKee experts wade in here to help Cathy and myself with some documentation and court records reference numbers. This is all way too confusing as to these McKee men of the 1700's in PA.
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