Hi George, I always keep an eye out for ROSE. But as far as I can tell the only connection (albeit a significant connection) between the surnames ROSE and GEDDES is that the DE ROS family settled the location called Geddes. William the Lion gave three of his chums from Northumbria lands along the Moray firth in abt 1174. DE ROS was given the lands of Geddes (Nairnshire), DE BYSET was given Kilravock (next door); DE BOSCO got Redcastle (on the Black Isle). Trying to sort the facts from the fiction hasn't been easy, but it seems John BYSET moved to Redcastle; he founded Beauly Priory in 1231 and a witness there was Hugh DE ROS of Geddes - the first actually-documented occurence of my surname. Hugh DE ROS (I think grandson of the above) acquired Kilravock in 1290 through marriage to Marie, d/o Elizabeth DE BISSET & Andrew DE BOSCO. MACINTOSHs acquired Geddes around that time (some parts maybe as early as 1240), and I am of the opinion that Geddes eventually became split into three portions: Easter Geddes and Meikle Geddes which are still named thus today; and Wester Geddes being the land upon which Cawdor Castle was built later on. I don't suppose the local population got much say in any matters at the time, and probably many left. I suspect that my surname is a geonym identfying people that used to live there but didn't any more, whereas yours comes from the French Norman DE ROS. In this context, I'm not aware of any familial connection between ROSE and GEDDES. It was the above John BYSET (or his son) who founded the church at Rathven, Banffshire in abt 1224, so there's quite a neat connection between these lands of Geddes in Nairnshire and my family who centuries later were and are in Rathven, Deskford and Fordyce. I'm a bit surprised that you say that there's little known about the ROSEs - I had understood that the ROSEs of Kilravock had the longest known confirmed genealogy of all Scotland! Howard Geddes