The members of the family usually served as beys, sanjak-beys, beylerbeys, pashas, and castle commanders.

[1][2] Malkoç, the eponymous founder, is alleged to have been one of the commanders of Sultan Murad I and Bayezid I, fighting at Kosovo (1389) and at Nicopolis (1396).

[3] Unpaid they lived and operated as raiders on the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, subsisting totally on plunder.

Four such Muslim families were particularly prominent during the Ottoman conquest of Rumeli (the name they used for the Balkan peninsula): these were the Evrenosoğulları,fn2 the Mihaloğulları, the Turahanoğulları, and the Malkoçoğulları.

[...] Malkoç dynasty, properly known as Malković, were of Christian, Serb originTürk atlı ordusunun sağ kanadına, Balı Bey'in büyük oğlu Ali Bey, ardeı birliklere de küçük oğlu Tur-Ali Bey kumanda ediyordu