 The family is of Ulster ancestry and perhaps also has some distant English ancestry through Colonel Joseph Hall of Hall Place, Lurgan.The MacCormac family descends from the union of John MacCormac, (d. 1811), a prosperous linen merchant and Mary Ann Hall, (1766-1846), a wealthy heiress and daughter of Colonel Joseph Hall, a notable distiller in County Armagh.John MacCormac was the son of Cornelius MacCormac, a high-ranking naval officer who died after falling aboard a vessel.