Author Topic: Origin of the name Keddy  (Read 6816 times)

Offline KD146

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Origin of the name Keddy
« on: Wednesday 15 April 15 01:45 BST (UK) »
The name Keddy seems to be unique historically in Ireland to a small area of Co.Wicklow, centred around Kilquade.  It appears nowhere else.

The similar name Keady seems to be common in Galway and the west, and seems to have no connection at all to the name Keddy.

Are there any suggestions where the name Keddy might have come from, and would it be a corruption of something else?  I have traced Keddys back to the start of available records in Kilquade in 1826, but surely it is unusual for a name to be so localised to one sole parish?
Co.Dublin - Connor, Martin, Reilly, Roche

Co.Laois - Brennan, Cobbe, Curran, Quearney

Co.Wexford - Kavanagh, Louth, Toole

Co.Wicklow - Booth, Byrne, Franklin, Kearney, Keddy, Murphy, Turner, Waldron, Woods

Hampshire, UK - Hayter, Heady, Nutley, Pullen

Offline whiteout7

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #1 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 05:17 BST (UK) »
Wicklow is in Northern Ireland, I would think that the Keddy's were Ulster Scots and that they originally came from Scotland.
Wemyss/Crombie/Laing/Blyth (West Wemyss)
Givens/Normand (Dysart)
Clark/Lister (Dysart)
Wilkinson/Simson (Kettle or Kettlehill)

Offline Elwyn Soutter

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #2 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 05:57 BST (UK) »
Wicklow is in Northern Ireland, I would think that the Keddy's were Ulster Scots and that they originally came from Scotland.

Wicklow is not in Northern Ireland. It’s in the Republic of Ireland, south of Dublin.

Looking at the 1901 census there are 79 Keddys listed, all in Wicklow and Co Dublin. All were RC which would normally suggest they were native Irish, rather than descendants of plantation families. However this site describes the surname as rare and possibly of Scottish origins:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=Go.&UserID=

So possibly they are descendants of an RC Scottish plantation family (there were some) in the 1600s.
Elwyn

Offline whiteout7

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #3 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 06:08 BST (UK) »
 C 1632 "Thomas Wentworth confiscated land in Wicklow and planned a full-scale Plantation of Connacht — where all Catholic landowners would lose between a half and a quarter of their estates".

In 1632 the border was probably debatable and some Scots were certainly Catholics.
Wemyss/Crombie/Laing/Blyth (West Wemyss)
Givens/Normand (Dysart)
Clark/Lister (Dysart)
Wilkinson/Simson (Kettle or Kettlehill)


Offline Sinann

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #4 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 07:40 BST (UK) »

In 1632 the border was probably debatable and some Scots were certainly Catholics.

What border?

Offline dathai

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #5 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 08:08 BST (UK) »
There could most likely be corruption of names
A while back i was researching the name Cornelia from Baybush,Kildare.
I could not find them on Griffiths Valuations or Tithe Applotments.
Thanks to Sinann providing a link to the Leinster Leader i found an eviction order by Lord Barton in the 1890s for this family part of their defence was an agreement made earlier in the 1800s that one of the Cornelia's could stay on the land in return for his labour.
An old neighbour of the Cornelia's stated as a young boy that he had seen Mr Cornelia constructing the buildings on the land in the early 1800s and that they were over 100 years on this land.
So i went back to Griffiths Valuation and searched by townland and found them there in Baybush as
Keneela and possibly as Kennelly on the Tithe Applotments.

Offline Sinann

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #6 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 08:16 BST (UK) »
A corruption of a name is highly possible or simply one man arrived in Wicklow attached to one of the 'grand' families, married a local girl and the rest as they say is history.

Offline Skoosh

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #7 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 11:37 BST (UK) »
Black's "Surnames" has Keddie/Keddy etc' as early as 1388 when the ship of a Scot John Kede was wrecked off Norfolk.
Fife, Lanark, Edinburgh & Caithness origin.

Skoosh.

Offline KD146

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Re: Origin of the name Keddy
« Reply #8 on: Wednesday 15 April 15 16:08 BST (UK) »
All very interesting folks, thanks indeed!

So Scottish origins are looking most likely?  I found four Keddy men born in Kilquade in the 1800-1810 timeframe, Richard, William, John and James, though too early for baptisms.  William, John and James all had firstborn sons named Richard, suggesting strongly, but wholly unverified, that the four were brothers, with a father called Richard.  Kilquade church records don't begin until 1826, so I am unlikely to be able to get any verification of that theory.

They may of course be cousins rather than brothers, but the lack of too many Keddys locally, and none at all anywhere else, does suggest that they don't trace back much further than their father, or their grandfather at the earliest.  It corroborates that they were likely all brothers, and that their father might have been the first Keddy to arrive.

I wonder now, would I find a Richard Keddy born in Scotland circa 1770-1780, who might have emigrated to Ireland?  That sounds like a longshot indeed, and something I couldn't verify even if I did find one.  But I suppose a tenuous lead is better than no lead at all.

Any thoughts, or am I likely to be at my brick wall?  :)
Co.Dublin - Connor, Martin, Reilly, Roche

Co.Laois - Brennan, Cobbe, Curran, Quearney

Co.Wexford - Kavanagh, Louth, Toole

Co.Wicklow - Booth, Byrne, Franklin, Kearney, Keddy, Murphy, Turner, Waldron, Woods

Hampshire, UK - Hayter, Heady, Nutley, Pullen