My original plan was to start a One-Name-Study of my own surname, Forty, with Fortey and Fortay two of the variants. However after doing some initial research I reached the conclusion that Fortay appears to have a different origin from Forty/Fortey. It seems likely that it comes from Scotland, which is very convenient because that's where I live and where I have most genealogical experience. Also, Fortay is much less common that Forty/Fortey and hence it seemed a good idea to tackle it first, perhaps looking at creating Forty/Fortey as a separate study some time in the future!

In Britain, it seems that the Fortays came originally from Scotland. There was a family of mariners at the Isle of Whithorn in the early nineteenth century; they may have been related to a number of Fortays recorded in Fife in the late eighteenth century. Future research will hopefully confirm this.

It should also be noted that the name also exists in France and Switzerland.

UK census (Sources: Ancestry, Scotlandspeople after correcting for mistranscriptions)