Harveys in Clan Keith

[bdkilted]

Thanks guys. I needed this information for answering questions about the origin of the name at the Highland Games.

[ThistleDown]

Thanks guys. I needed this information for answering questions about the origin of the name at the Highland Games.

If you are new to this be cautious with the information you give out, bdk. In another thread you mentioned the Keiths being a part of Clan Chattan. I know this is one of the "origin" stories attested to by an earlier Keith chief and still accepted by some Keiths around the world, but we now know the only family by the name of Keith in Clan Chattan territory during the clan centuries was a small one tenented on the Dunachton estate for a relatively brief period -- in the late 17C.

The story that it was a chief of the Clan Chattan, Robert by name, who was created Grand-Marshal of Scotland in 1010 is fictional.

Further, there is no proof that the Catti gave their name to Caithness, or that Robert was descended of the Catti, although this is a tale told. Certainly a Keith chief (by that time domiciled at Dunottar) married an heiress of Caithness and thereafter the Keiths had much to do with the political climate of that region, but not before that marriage.

The same absence of proof and balancing of facts needs to be considered when you are trying to find an origin for the Harveys. An early Keith chief is on record with the Breton name Herveus and there were Herveys and Harveys at Keith in East Lothian from the early 14C. That's a good enough origin to satisfy most enquiring minds, without attempting to tie this well-known and well-respected family to some Breton or an unrecorded marriage.

Those Harveys of the East have no relationship with the Harveys of the West who are descended of a knight of the name who came over to England with William the Bastard in 1066, or shortly thereafter, and whose descendant eventually found himself in Lowland Scotland.