This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'de Quesnay' , in the canton of Montmartin, department of La Manche, Normandy (Lower).

William de Cheyney, Norfolk, 2 Henry II: History of Norfolk.

Felicia de Cheny, Devon, 20 Edward I: Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edward I-III.

Philip de Cheny, Guernsey, ibid.

Walter de Chenay, Salop, Henry III-Edward I: Testa de Nevill, sive Liber Feodorum, temp. Henry III-Edward I.

Henry de Cheney, Cambridgeshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Nicholas de Cheney, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

William de Cheney, Suffolk, ibid.

1661. Thomas Cheney (Suffolk) and Elizabeth Clopton: Marriage Alleg. (Canterbury).

1663. Christopher Wilkinson and Ellen Cheyne: ibid.

Of Norman origin from Quesney near Coutances, a place name meaning 'oak-plantation.' The Scots family is believed to be a branch of the house of Cheyne or Cheyney of Buckinghamshire. Ricardus de Chenai witnessed gift by Hucdredus filius Fergus to the Hospital of St. Peter of York c. 1158—64 (Edgar, p. 219). But the earliest of the name in Scotland appears to have been William de Chesne, witness to a charter by William the Lion, a. 1200 (LSC., 33). Some of the early charter writers confused chene, 'oak,' with chien, 'dog,' and so erroneously Latinized the name canis. William le Chen had a protection while in the king of England's service beyond seas, 1230 (Bain, I, 1089). There were three Reginalds in succession, all figures of great importance in their day: (1) Reginald, a nephew of John Balliol of Badenoch, sheriff of Kincardine, 1242, in 1267 appointed chamberlain (camerarius) of Scotland; (2) Sir Reginald who held the thanage of Fermartyn as 'firmarius' in 1286, and rendered homage in 1296; (3) Reginald the third and last of that name in succession was one of the signers of the barons' letter to the pope, April, 1320. His line ended in two daughters, co-heiresses, Mary and Margaret or Marjory. By the marriage of Mary with John Keith of Inventgy the Keiths obtained a footing in Caithness. Margaret Chein, before 1370, had from David II a charter of the lands of Strathbrok and the half of Cathness (RMS., I, App. II, 1537). Henry le Chen was bishop of Aberdeen for the long period of forty-six years, 1282—1328 (REA., I, p. xxvi-xxviii), and Freskyn de Chen appears as decanus Aberdonensis, 1321 (ibid., I, p. 47). Sir Reginald de Chen petitioned Edward I in 1305 for two hundred oaks to build his manor of Dufhous (Bain, IV, p. 375). The Cheynes of Esselmont are descended from marriage of Janet Marshall, heiress of Essilmonte (end of fourteenth century) to Chene of Straloch. Thomas Chyne appears in Reddene, 1567 (Kelso, p. 522), and John Chyine was trade burgess in Aberdeen, 1666, and Gavin Chisnie the same in 1669 (ROA., I, p. 235—236). In the United States the name appears to have become Chinn. Chayne 1600, Cheen 1687, Scheyne 1649.

The earliest reference I have met to Chesney in Ireland is in 1251; de Chaeny (presumably the same name) occurs as that of the seneschal of Leinster in 1246; while Ralph Cheyny was Lord Deputy in 1372-he is also called O'Heyne in the Liber Munerum, but this is clearly a mistranscription of Cheyne.

These men can be disregarded, I think, so far as Cheneys of later centuries are concerned. In 1610, under the Plantation of Ulster, Thomas Cheyney obtained 1,000 acres at Drominishen, Co. Fermanagh. A generation later there were two Cheneys among the English Cromwellian “adventurers”, but I have found no evidence that they ever took up possession of any land in Ireland, though there was a John Cheney of Dublin in the army in 1648 and a Robert Chaney appears as a city of Cork “titulado” in 1659. The name subsequently became established in Co. Cork: six are mentioned in the will of James Cheney dated 1775. Other eighteenth century wills indicate that they were then mainly to be found in east Leinster, particularly Co. Kildare. The name is now rare and scattered.

Reaney links Cheyney and Cheney with Cheyne and Chesny, all deriving from the Old-French chesnai, Latin casnetum (i.e. an oakgrove) whence also the French place-name Quesnay. Chesney is a surname not uncommon in Ulster, sometimes with the prefix Mac. I state the fact: I have yet to learn the explanation of it. Three Chesnys, born in Co. Down, who distinguished themselves abroad, in cluding Francis Rawdon Chesney (1789—1872) of Suez Canal fame, find a place in the Dictionary of National Biography; the Cheyneys therein have no connexion with Ireland.

(Anglo-French-Latin) belonging to Cher.ay or Cheney (France) = the Oak - Wood [French chênaie; French chêne, Old French chesne, Latin quesn-us, quern-us, querc-us, an oak + the accum. suff. -ay, -aie, Latin -et-um]

(English) One who came from Quesney, Cheney, or Chenay (oak grove), in France; dweller near the chain, or barrier, used to close a street at night.

No name that I have had to deal with has puzzled my poor brains so effectually as this. In its present form it can only be an interpolation, as it is the fusion, in English parlance, of three perfectly distinct Norman names, De Cahaignes, De Quesnay, and De Chenduit; and, to add to the difficulties of the problem, has been sometimes confounded with De Chanceux. There is scarcely any part of England in which it is not to be met with; “a name so noble and so diffused in the Catalogue of Sheriffs,” writes old Fuller, “it is harder to miss than to find it in any County;” and it has travelled across the Border into Scotland. None has suffered more from “the Epidemical disease to which many names are subject, to be variously written; to the staggering of many: ‘The same they thought was not the same, And in their name they sought their name.’”

Dugdale distinguishes the two first mentioned simply by a change in the first letter; thus, De Quesnay is Latinized as Caineto, and De Cahaignes as Kaineto. Other writers, however, furnish us with an almost illimitable supply of versions— Koine, Keynes, Chedney, Chesney, Chaauns, Canu, Kenys, Cheyne, &c. It is strange that they should never, even by inadvertence, have stumbled upon the right spelling.

This ubiquitous name is twice repeated on the Roll; once as Cheines, which, accepting Leland’s reading, I take to be Cheinel; and again as Koine.

I will here give what account I can of the De Quesnays, and treat of the De Cahaignes under Koine. Of Chenduit and Chanceux I have spoken elsewhere. (See p. 235, and Vol. III. p. 361.) “Le Quesnai, Camden includes Cheney among his instances of local Norman names “taken from trees near their habitation:” as, Coigners, or quince; Zouch, the trunk of a tree; Cursy and Curson, the stock of a vine; Chesny or Cheyney, oak: Daunay, alder. But most of these names were certainly territorial; though Cheney is sometimes Latinized as Querceto. near St. Saens, was” (according to Mr. Stapleton) “apparently the fief from which this family had its name, and was held by Geoffrey de Say at the time of the acquisition of Normandy by the French monarch.” M. de Gerville tells us of another Quesnay, in the canton of Montmartin-sur-mer, adjoining Trély, held by a single knight’s fee, which was “en quenouille” (had fallen to female heirs) early in the thirteenth century. There is no remaining trace of any castle. From one or other of these fiefs—whichever it may have been—derived the Raoul and Osbern de Quesnai entered on the Dives Roll. Of the latter I can find no trace; the former is Dugdale’s “Raphe de Caineto id. est Cheney,” who “came into England with King William the Conqueror; but from him,” he adds, “I have not seen any Descendants, other than Females.”

Blomfield, in his county history, tells us that Ralph was Lord of Ling, &c., in Norfolk, and gave the manor of Coxford, where a priory was founded by one of his descendants, to Sibil his daughter in marriage. She was apparently his heiress, and the wife of Robert Fitz Walter, son of Walter de Caen or de Cadomo, one of the knights of Robert Malet, by whom he was enfeoffed of Horsford. He had there built his castle, and laid out around it a spacious park or chase, “in some deeds called the Forest of Horsford.” Yet, though Sibil’s husband was the heir to this barony, and himself the founder of Horsford Priory, their posterity invariably bore the the name of Cheney. They were hereditary Sheriffs of Norfolk and Suffolk, and had their caput baroniæ at Horsford. “The river, by some call’d Bariden, in a long course, with its dinted and winding banks, comes to the Yare, by Attilbridge; leaving Horsford to the north, where the Castle of William de Casinet or de Cheney (who in the reign of Henry II. was one of the chief among the nobility) lies overgrown with bushes and brambles.”—Camden.

This William, whom Blomfield in one passage calls Sibil’s son; in another (far more probably) her grandson, “the son of Ralph,” which would better accord with the dates; was the youngest of three brothers. Roger, the eldest, died s. p.; John, called Vicecomes or Sheriff, had no issue male; and William became Lord of Horsford, and a great potentate in the Eastern Counties. From his frequent residence at Norwich Castle, he was surnamed De Norwich. “King Stephen granted to him the hundred and half of Fourhow with the manor of Hingham, and the hundred of Taverham, in exchange for Moleham, &c.: and Henry II. gave him the lordship of Blyburgh by a charter dated at Lincoln.” Sibton Abbey, co. Suffolk, was founded by him: and another religious house—Coxford, either by him or his brother John. By his wife Gilia, he left three daughters: 1. Margaret, married first Hugh de Cressy, and secondly Robert Fitz Roger, Baron of Warkworth; 2. dementia, married Jordan de Sackville; and 3. Sarah, married to Richard Engaine. These were his co-heiresses; but Margaret, as the eldest, undeniably enjoyed the lion’s share, for she was Lady of Horsford and Lady of Blyburgh. She had a son by each of her husbands: Roger de Cressy by the first, and John Fitz Roger by the second, whom she survived. At his death in 1216, she paid the King one thousand pounds—an enormous sum at that time—to “have livery of her own inheritance, to enjoy her dower, and not to be compelled to marry again.” Her baronies passed to her eldest son Roger de Cressy, and when his posterity failed in 1262, to the Barons of Clavering, descended from her second son, John Fitz Roger.

Weir, in his History and Antiquities of Horncastle, speaks of an Adelias, daughter and heir of William de Cheney, Lord of Cavenby and Glentham, in Lincolnshire, in the time of the Conqueror. She married Roger de Conde or Cundy, and had an only child named Agnes, the wife of Walter Clifford of Clifford Castle, who “resided at her castle of Homcastle.” But Camden tells us that “Hornecastle, sometime belonging to Adeliza de Conde, was laid even with the ground in King Stephen’s reign; after that, it was a Barony of Gerard de Rodes, but now of the Bishops of Carlisle.” It had been sold to Bishop Walter Mauclerk by Ralph de Rodes in the time of Henry III.

Perhaps the marriage of this heiress of the Cheney’s may explain the tenure of Alexander de Cheney, who held Norton-Cheney, near Culmington in Shropshire, in 1231, of Walter de Clifford, to whom he was Seneschal. Cheney- Longville, in the same county, likewise bears the name of its former possessor.

My account of the wide-spread family of Cahaignes (see Koine) has of necessity been so diffuse, that I will here insert what little I have to tell of the Scottish Cheneys, whose origin I am unable to determine. Their arms, Azure three cross crosslets fitchée Argent, are entirely different from those borne by any of the three families to whom the name was indiscriminately applied. The chiefs of the house, who were “Magnatis Scotiæ” at the time of the succession of the Maid of Norway, held the baronies of Inverugie and Duffus, and intermarried with the heiress of the principal house of Colville, and “one of the daughters who carried to strangers the great estates of the Freskins in Moray.” —Douglas’ Peerage of Scotland. The last was Sir Reginald Cheyne, who fell at Halidon Hill, leaving two co-heiresses, one of whom carried Inverugie to the Keiths; and the other brought Duffus to Alexander Sutherland, the ancestor of Lord Duffus. A younger branch then succeeded as head of the family, the Cheynes of Esselmount, “a very ancient and once powerful house in the Garioch, which continued at least three hundred years longer. Sir Patrick Cheyne of Esselmount is mentioned in the seventeenth century. There was also a Cheyne of Stralock, whose daughter Christian was the wife of Sir Alexander Seton (obt. 1340). The “tower and manor of the Cheinys of Cleish, and the lands of Cheinysland and the Haltoun of Cleish,” were granted in 1505 to Sir Robert Colville.

The last Sir Reginald is (according to Lord Hailes and Chalmers) traditionally known in Caithness as the “Morrar-na-Shean,” and a mighty hunter of deer.

From Quesnay in the canton of Montmartin, department of La Manche, Normandy. De Gerville, Mem. Soc. Antiq. Normandie, 1825; but Mr. Walford with more probability derives the family from Cahagnes in the department of Calvados, a village of 2000 inhabitants, lying S.W. of Caen. They held a fief of the Count of Mortain, and attended him to the Conquest of England; and the feudal relation was retained long afterwards in the rape of Pevensey, co. Sussex, where their estate was called Horsted Keynes. They also denominated Milton Keynes, co. Bucks, Winkley Keynes, co. Devon, Combe Keynes, co. Dorset, and Keynes Court, co. Wilts. Sussex Arch. Coll. i. 133. The orthography has taken numerous forms, particularly De Chaaignes de Caisneto, Keynes, de Cahaysnes, and more recently Caney and Cheney. It has also been variously latinized De Caneto, De Casineto, and De Querceto-the last under an erroneous impression that the name had its origin in chesnaie, a grove of oaks.

Modifications of Cheney.

An oak tree-from chene.

(French.) Local. From Chene, an oak; Chenaie, a grove, a plantation of oaks.

Chênée, Chiny; location name in Flanders; Chaignes, Le Chesne; location name in France.

Cheyne, Cheines, Cheyni in Roll of Battell Abbey. in the Domesday Book, Chenisis; from the French, Chesnais, Chesnée; personal name Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln, 1147; Richard Cheyney, Bishop of Lincoln, 1562. William de Chesne in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, King John, 1208.

Cheney or Cheyney is an ancient name in the east of England, but it is not of frequent occurrence now. In the 13th century it was established in most of the eastern counties in the forms of De Cheney, De Chenee, Le Cheny, etc., in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hunts, Norfolk, Beds, etc. (H. R.). The Cheyneys of Boston, Lincolnshire, were well - known merchants of last century, and frequently filled the office of mayor of the town (Thompson's "Boston"). Cheney was an old Herts name in the 16th century, when Sir Thomas Cheney owned the manor of Willian (Cussans' "Herts").