First found in Kent where they were anciently seated. At the taking of the Domesday Book in 1086 by Duke William of Normandy the village of Graveney was held by under-tenant Richard the Constable from chief-tenant, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was customary that when the Normans introduced surnames into England the Baron or head of the family gave lands to his sons or other relatives. To distinguished these branches the offspring assumed the name of their holdings, and conjecturally, the surname was derived from Richard of Graveney in Kent, which at Domesday held manor and four salt houses on the edge of marshland.

Faced with the chaos present in England at that time, many English families looked towards the open frontiers of the New World with its opportunities to escape oppression and starvation. People migrated to North America, as well as Australia and Ireland in droves, paying exorbitant rates for passages in cramped, unsafe ships. Many of the settlers did not make the long passage alive, but those who did see the shores of North America were welcomed with great opportunity. Many of the families that came from England went on to make essential contributions to the emerging nations of Canada and the United States. Some of the first immigrants to cross the Atlantic and come to North America carried the name Graveen, or a variant listed above: John Gravener who was recorded as having arrived in Maryland in 1634; and other settlers who established themselves in the United States and in Canada during the 18th and 19th centuries..

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