As anyone called Harkness knows, it is a difficult name to get along with. You invariably have to repeat and often spell your name to shop assistants, hotel receptionists, airline check-in personnel, etc. Typical variations are Harkess, Harkins, Harcus, Herkess, and many others.
The variety of similar names causes problems for those researching their ancestry. The problem is in deciding when a recorded name is a corruption of ‘Harkness’ or is derived from an entirely different name. The following extract illustrates the problem.
“One very elementary error is to believe that there is some significance in variant spellings of the same name, for example Clerk or Clark, Burnet and Burnett, Gray and Grey, or in certain highland names, the variation between Mac- and Mc- and between the use of a capital or a small letter in the second part of the name, e.g. MacLean or Maclean. The truth is that until a matter of two and a half centuries ago the spelling of proper names, as of other words, was quite arbitrary. Different scribes used different spellings, the same scribe used different spellings within the same document, an individual would spell his own name in different ways on different occasions. So no significance whatever can be attached to different spellings as indicative of ancestry or relationship. It was simply a matter of chance, as spelling did become standardised, that certain families adopted particular spellings and other families, possibly closely related to them, adopted different spellings.
From ‘Surnames and Ancestry in Scotland’ by Gordon Donaldson (Professor Scottish History)
The following are examples of commonly occurring issues.
HARKIN is a name frequently confused with the ‘Harkness’ name. In some instances this may have derived from mis-recording. However, ‘Harkin’ is an entirely different name commonly occurring in Ireland, particularly in the Donegal area. In the late 19th century many ‘Harkins’ emigrated to Scotland from Donegal, particularly to Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Dundee and Edinburgh. Many officials, such as Census Enumerators, recorded Harkin as Harkness and, more commonly vice versa.
HARCUS is a name commonly found in Orkney, particularly on the island of Westray. A few years ago I took my grandson on a trip to Orkney and we took a flight from Kirkwall, the main town in Orkney, to Papa Westray. The motive was to take the shortest scheduled flight in the Guinness Book of Records from Westray to the island of Papa Westray, all of two minutes. While checking in I was asked our name which the lady wrote down on a piece of paper, it is a very small airport and things were very informal then. When I looked at the piece of paper she had written ‘Harcus’. We spent a couple of nights on Westray and the people we stayed with, coincidentally, were called Harcus.
As a youngster I was often told Harkness was a Viking name as there were people called Harkness in Orkney (I didn’t come across any) and that the ‘ness’ element was ‘obviously’ Norse. The Orkney name is, of course, Harcus and when I asked Dr. Jim Wilson, Edinburgh University, an Orkney man who was involved with the BBC ‘Blood of the Vikings’ DNA research project, if there might be a link, he confirmed that my DNA was not related to that of the Orkney Harcus DNA.
HARKESS/HERKESS This is probably the most confusing name for Harkness people researching their family history. There are instances where the names have been confused and there are Harkness’s who have been recorded as these names. However, there is evidence that there is an entirely different name Harkess and it is derived from a different source. In Berwickshire there is a farm called Harcarse. In 1214 Adam de Harcarres was recorded as abbot of Newbattle Abbey. In 1259 Sir Alan de Harecares witnessed a gift of land in Aython (Berwickshire) and in 1296 Marjorie, Roger and Thomas de Harkars, all of Berwickshire, rendered homage. 19th century census, and statutory birth, marriage and death records show frequent occurrences of the name Harkess and Herkess in Berwickshire and East Lothian.
There are other variations of the name that confuse the issue. If there is an ‘n’ after the ‘k’ then the likelihood it is derived from Harkness. My grandfather always insisted his name was Harkness ‘with an n’. There may have been some added motivation in this from the fact that a well know undertaker in Edinburgh was named ‘Harkess’. However, the issue is complex and research into the history and early records of the example of the name being studied, if possible, is necessary before conclusions can be drawn.