Ray and Listers, I get the Digest and I've 'at it' in other directions, so sorry about the delay. Ray asked: "We have a Margaret GEDDES, second wife of James WISELY [m.10.7.1849], but not, as far as I know, associated with Aberlour. We also have a Janet GEDDIE who married John GRAY somewhere in the Longside or nearby areas around 1820-1830. Are the GEDDIE line a variant of GEDDES?? Janet & John's son married the daughter of James WISELY's first wife..." First, to answer Ray's direct question "Are the GEDDIE line a variant of GEDDES??": I think the answer is broadly 'no, but'. But if evidence turns up.... See below. Secondly does this clarify the identity of Janet GEDDIE?! From the IGI: JOHN GRAY Spouse: JANET GEDDES Marriage: 04 AUG 1828 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland (M112185) Father: John Gray, Mother: Janet Geddes (not Geddie) 1. DUNCAN GRAY Christening: 17 JUN 1843 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland 2. MALCOLM GRAY Christening: 17 JUN 1843 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland 3. WILLIAM GRAY Christening: 29 MAY 1830 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland 4. EDMUND GRAY Christening: 17 APR 1836 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland 5. ANNE GRAY Christening: 05 MAY 1834 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland 6. ROBERT GRAY Christening: 01 AUG 1832 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland 7. JANET GRAY Christening: 02 JUN 1838 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland I think one can safely say that your Janet GEDDIE is actually Janet GEDDES. Thus I cannot see any connection with any Janet GEDDIEs down Jim Mackay's way. About GEDDES and GEDDIE. You'd have thought there was a connection, but none has been found that I'm aware of. Thirdly, more on the origin of the surnames. If Listers are not interested, skip the rest. The name Geddes is first mentioned in 1280, in context of The Lands Of Geddes, and by then the name was clearly already long established. It has several geographic concentrations all over Scotland: e.g. Peebles, Galloway, the Far North, Nairn. Black's Surnames of Scotland has a decent length paragraph which starts: "Geddes, and Geddess, is of territorial origin from the lands of Geddes in Nairnshire, which were in possession of the family of Rose before they obtained Kilravock." Auckland Campbell Geddes in a 1952 book The Forging Of A Family gives an appealing theory about the origin of the name and the people. Briefly, the name derives from the Norse word for a pike (the fish, not the long pointy thing) - a Ged which word is still used in Heraldry today. Heraldry-Online recently cited on this List gives all the Geddes Arms, and the one that caught my eye was crest of three Geds (pikes) carved on a grave in Moray with this MI: HEIR. LYIS. ANE. HONEST / MAN. CALIT. GEORG. GEDDES. SWMTYM. IN. DWELLER / IN. THE. WALKMYLNE / WHA. DEPAIRIT. THE. 12. OF. APRIL. 1632. AND. HIS. SPOWS = MARIORI. SIMSON // WHA DEPAIRIT THE 28 IAIAWARY 1628. (Is this in Bellie Churchyard?) The spelling doesn't seem to have changed at all since then (in Scotland that is - in England, poor lost souls that they are, my name gets spelled in every which way you can imagine and then some, and as for pronunciation - well!) Black's Surnames of Scotland says about GEDDIE: "A family of this name was long connected with the district of Essie. John Gedy, abbot of Arbroath, was prominently associated with the first formation of a harbor at Arbroath in 1394 (RAA., ii, p40-42). The agreement between him and the burgesses of the town is "perhaps the most curious and interesting of the records of harbour-making and also of voluntary taxation in Scotland" (ibid., ii, p.xviii). John Geddy was servitor to Ceorge Buchanan c. 1577 ( Report on Laing MSS., i, p.29). Walter Geddy of St. Andrews appears in 1580 (Laing, 1001). Gedde 1680; Geiddy." Given the apparent single-point origin of the surname, you have to think it is a corruption of Geddes, and the entry doesn't seem to relate at all to the Moray Geddies which for me is another reason to think the Moray Geddie was derived long ago from the local Geddes surname. Lawrence Geddie had a website called Geddie-World (http://www.booksphere.com/gedworld) which gave lots of Geddie-related info, but that seems to have gone now. Another similar surname is GADDIS: as far as I can see this is of entirely Irish origin with loads of that name emigrating from Ireland to the US (whereas GEDDES people tended to emigrate from Scotland to Canada). Again, apart from clerical errors, I've never come across a valid connection between the two surnames, although it has been said, quite reasonably, that Gaddis evolved from Geddes when Scots Geddeses went across to Ireland during 'Plantation'. Of course the Irish contingent think that Geddes evolved from Gaddis when the Gaddis came across from Ulster to Galloway even earlier - but they're wrong of course! Geddes rules because Geddes says so! Regards Howard