General Notes

Daughter of an aristocratic family who owned a distillery in Edinburgh, Scotland, the descendants of Sir William Henry Harvey, physician to King James I and King Charles I.  When she married a commoner, a ship's carpenter, her father disowned her and even when her husband died at sea while she was pregnant, the family refused to allow her return.  In later years she emigratated to America with her son and grandson.

The Harvey family in England traces its ancestry to the time of the Conquest. The progenitor is believed to be Herveus de Bourges or Hervey of Bourges, who came with William the Conqueror and according to the Domesday Book was in 1086 a great baron in county Suffolk. He was a grandson of Geoffry, third viscount of Bourges, an ancient city of France, who rebuilt the abbey of St. Ambrose or Bourges in 1012. Harvey, the surname, is undoubtedly derived from the more ancient baptismal name, variously spelled Herveus, Hervey, Harvey, etc. Surnames came into general use in England about the year 1200.