Clan Melville

Origins and Name

The Melvilles are one of the oldest Norman-origin families in Scotland, tracing their name to Malleville in Normandy. The family arrived in Scotland in the twelfth century under David I's policy of encouraging Norman settlement, and they established themselves in Midlothian and East Lothian where they held the barony of Melville from the medieval period.

The family produced a series of significant figures in Scottish religious and political history. Andrew Melville (1545–1622) was the most prominent Scottish Protestant reformer after John Knox, the architect of Presbyterian church governance in Scotland, and a figure whose influence on Scottish religious and intellectual life was enormous. His confrontation with James VI — telling the king that he was merely 'God's sillie vassal' in matters of religion — defined the tension between crown and kirk for generations.

The Diaspora

The most famous American bearer of the name is Herman Melville (1819–1891), author of Moby-Dick, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Billy Budd. Herman's Scottish ancestry came through his father's family, who had emigrated from Scotland to the American colonies in the eighteenth century. The family name was originally spelled Melvill — the final 'e' was added by Herman's grandfather after the Revolutionary War.

In Canada, Melvilles appear prominently in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The town of Melville in Saskatchewan is named for the family, and the Melville Sound in the Canadian Arctic was named by William Edward Parry after the Earl of Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, during the 1819–20 expedition.

Researching Melville Ancestry

Melville genealogy is well-supported by the Scottish records. The Old Parish Registers for Midlothian and East Lothian at ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk cover the relevant parishes from the mid-sixteenth century. The Melville Castle papers, held at the National Records of Scotland, document the main family line through to the nineteenth century.

For American branches — particularly for those tracing connection to Herman Melville — the Albany, New York records are the starting point: the American Melvills settled in Massachusetts and New York in the early nineteenth century. The Berkshire County records in Massachusetts hold documentation of Herman Melville's later life at Arrowhead farm in Pittsfield.