tracey crest

Tracey Family

tracey crest

An Irish Family History

The Viscounts of Rathcoole and baronets of Limerick.

The Shield is: Or, an escallop in the chief point sable between two bendlets gules.

Translation: Or (yellow) symbolizes the Sun and denotes Splendor, Majesty and Magnanimity.

The Crest is: On a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, an escallop sable between two wings or.

The Motto is: "Memoria pii aeterna",'The memory of the pious is eternal'.

CHAPTER XI. Those Unidentified. The Conqueror and His Companions. by J.R.

Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.

TRACIE, "Sire de," l. 13,605.

The Norman family of Tracy does not appear to have been of much importance in

England before the reign of Stephen, who bestowed upon Henry de Tracy the honour

of Ben stable (Barnstaple) in Devonshire; but the first of the name we hear of is

Turgis, or Turgisins de Tracy; who with William de la Ferté was defeated and driven

out of Maine by Fulk le Rechin, Count of Anjou, in 1073, and who was therefore in

all probability the Sire de Tracy in the army at Hastings. Tracy is in the

neighbourhood of Vire; arrondissement of Caen, and the ruins of a magnificent

castle of the middle ages were and may still be seen there. In 1082 a charter was

subscribed at Tracy by a William de Traci and his nephew Gilbert (Gallia Christina,

xi. Instrum. p. 107), one or the other being most likely the son of Turgis, and the

father of Henry of Barnstaple.

The name of Tracy is principally known to the readers of English history from the

unenviable notoriety of a William de Tracy, one of those involved in the murderer of

Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1170; but his connection with the

main line is obscure, as in his charter granting to the Canons of Torre, in the county

of Devon, all his lands at North Chillingford, he writes himself William de Traci,

son of Gervase de Courtenay, whose name I do not find in the pedigree of that house.