John Cheney (1605-1666)

John Cheney (1605-1666)

Early New England Immigrant

Ancestry
Cheney is derived from the French word chene, meaning oak, and it came into use originally in Normandy or England to signify the residence probably of the progenitor. It is certain that Cheney, Chine, Cheyney or Cheyne, as it was variously spelled, was of the of the earliest surnames used in England.

Sir Nicholas Cheyney acquired the manor of Up-Ottery in Devonshire in the reigh of Henry III (13th century).

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, records of the Cheney family are found in Northampton, Wiltshire, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and Devonshire, well diffused throughout England.

The American Cheneys originate from two early Cheney immigrants that both landed in Roxbury, MA (today part of Boston) in the early seventeenth century, William and John Cheney. The Cheney surname appears frequently in Essex County, England and appears to be the origination point of the American Cheney's.