Pittendreigh History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The surname Pittendreigh was first found in Aberdeenshire (Gaelic: Siorrachd Obar Dheathain), a historic county, and present day Council Area of Aberdeen, located in the Grampian region of northeastern Scotland, where they held a family seat. However, This ancient Clan, known as Pittendreich of that Ilk, conjecturally was most likely to be from Moravia, and came to Scotland in the train of Queen Margeret, second wife (1069) of King Canmore.

Queen Margeret, herself a royal refugee, was a learned churchwoman. She was appalled by the barbaric state of the Royal Scottish court. She recruited many European nobles, mostly Norman, but traveled as far east as Silesia and Moravia. Among them was Malcolm de Moravia who invited John of Pethindreich to witness a charter passing the lands of Lamebryde to his son William de Moray in 1278.

It was customary to invite relations or "friendly" important witnesses, men and women of stature, to affix their seals and names to such transactions, thus it is likely that John of Pethindreich was either a relative, or a very close friend and Chief of his Clan. Since Malcolm of Moravia was still carrying the territorial name his ancestors acquired in 1070 it must be assumed he was a large landowner who chose not to identify with a single property, i.e. Lambryde and possibly that also of the original Pittendreich.