A YOUATT FAMILY HISTORY Authored December 1997 by Jack Guernard Youatt 1926-2017 Edited May 2018 by Richard Winter Youatt 1 INTRODUCTION YOUATT Family History related below has been built up over a period of many years. Although much of the work is original, others interested in their Youatt ancestors have given considerable help. Where appropriate their findings have been incorporated in the main text and acknowledgement given. It is one of the unexpected pleasures of family history research to find previously unknown and distant relatives. Without exception a welcome and help in exchange of knowledge has been the writer’s experience. As the search for ancestors stretched ever further into the past clues and links became elusive and difficult to prove. At such times intelligent guesses have been made in the hope that these may be realised by later found facts. Experience has shown that not all such guesses are sustainable and revisions of previously held views have become necessary. With this text a few tentative links have been incorporated (and identified) on the understanding that this History will be revised if serious inaccuracy is later found. It is often thought that a surname of the rarity of Youatt should be easy to trace, however the contrary is the case. Until the late 19th.century the name was recorded and spelt according to the ability of the recordist to accurately write down the name heard. Such spellings need careful investigation before being accepted as Youatt ancestors. Fortunately the ready availability of civil and ecclesiastical documents enable other checks to be made. Another pointer in cases of doubt has been the repeated use of the Christian name CALEB, a practice starting in the 17th.C. and carried on well into this century. Help also comes from the 19th.C practice of using a mother’s maiden surname as a middle christening name, not only are the mother’s family identified but where the name was carried by later generations, family groups may be readily grouped. On the subject of records, nowadays most are copied and printed or viewed from microfilm, only occasionally is an original document produced for reference. It is a satisfying experience to not only see, but also handle, the handiwork of a distant ancestor. The task facing a writer of family history is to know just what to include and what to omit. In presenting this history bias is naturally given to the branch related to the author although an account of the achievements and relationships of other known branches is given. Almost without exception it can be claimed that a YOUATT surnamed person can be directly related to a yeoman farmer family of the North Devon village of NEWTON 2 TRACEY and with lesser degree of certainty to sergemaking families of the name in 17th.C. Exeter. The ensuing text describes our ancestors, their achievements, hardships, trades, and where they lived. Maps and copies of relevant documents accompany the text to form what is a most fascinating history. ORIGINS OF THE YOUATT SURNAME Before embarking on the history of the YOUATTS it is of interest to review surname origins. There are two standard reference sources for English surnames, these are dictionaries compiled by Bardesley and Reaney. Professional genealogists view both sources with some scepticism principally on the basis of associating like sounding surnames and generalising their origin. For analysis purposes surnames are to be found in various sub-divisions. In the case of YOUATT four categories have some attribution to the YOUATT surname, these are:- PATRONYMIC - a surname arising from a fathers first or Christian name e.g. George OCCUPATIONAL - a surname arising from a trade e.g. Farmer or Carpenter TOPONYMIC - a surname arising from association with an area e.g. Castle or Greenwood LOCATIVE - a surname arising from association with a specific place e.g. Winchester EWART is an example of a patronymic surname emerging from a corruption of the French EDWARD. During research a Youatt association is only to be found in those reference sources grouping like sounding surnames such as Hewett, Huet, Heward and the like. YOWART or EWEHARD is an example arising from an occupational surname with Saxon origins. It is derived from ‘the keeper of ewes’ a role similar to that of a shepherd. The Ewe- hyrd looked after ewes also kept for their milk. Cheese produced from ewe milk was considered a prized delicacy, it is one of those specialist cheeses that can be found even today. Such Yoward and Yowart names encountered during research are regionally grouped around Cumbria and the North East of Britain where ewes are pronounced ‘yows’. 3 YEOATTE is an example of a toponymic surname arising from roots meaning a dweller by the river Yeo. John atte-Yeo in the course of time would become John Yeoatte. Whilst suggestive of a family with North Devon associations it has not been possible to link the Youatt surname with either the Devon family of Yeo or to find a connection with the river of that name. In North Devon Yeo is pronounced locally ‘YOE’ as distinct from the ‘YOO’ the normal rendering of You. JOUETTE is a locative root for the Youatt surname. This is to be found in several regions of France the name in varying form is to be found in the Departments of Calvados, Lot-et-Garonne and Cher. [A locative example in practice: the surname Venus has roots in the Normandy village of Venois, so Jean of Venois is later to be found as John Venus ] A village with the name JOUETTE is to be found Calvados in Normandy, it is located some 12 km. south of the city of Caen in the valley of the river Vaize. This village name then yields the most likely source. JOUETTE then is the most likely origin of Youatt when the following factors developed in the ensuing text are considered:- Madame Audin the late French Genealogist was asked for the likelihood of a French origin for the surname prior to the 17th.century. In reply it was suggested that Jouette in Calvados was the most likely - although there was no documentary support in an area with few extant records. By complete coincidence a JOUETTE origin was reported to the author by Mary Youatt Steinbauer of New York, USA. Mary is a descendant of William Youatt (1831 - 1883) a North Devon stonemason who emigrated to the States. Mary wrote that it was said in their family that the surname was originally JOUETTE from Normandy but that it had been anglicised to retain a similar sound. It was a saying passed from father to son over the centuries and last heard when Mary’s father Glen asked her, around 1976, to record the saying heard from his father, grandson of the Stonemason, in about 1910. A SEARCH FOR EARLY YOUATTS Ancestral research usually starts by questioning living relatives, however reminiscences soon become confused and inaccurate. Resort is then made to the wealth of preserved 4 records both civil and ecclesiastical that enable a researcher to extend finds way back to Tudor times. One is of course lucky to get back so far, usually the mid seventeenth century is the norm - so it was with YOUATT. In the 18th. 19th. and start of the twentieth century local Parish Registers and Taxation lists and Wills, if extant, help considerably. As the 20th.C. is approached, the Census Returns taken every decade since 1841 give a glimpse of our ancestors, where they lived, their occupation, and the numbers and names of their children. Compulsory registration of all births deaths and marriages has been required since 1837; access to these public records all help to check and cross-check details. The author was fortunate in receiving a prepared but incomplete family history soon after embarking on his own. The history was incomplete but had been carried out professionally; it occurred thus :- The late Claude Septimus Youatt, a Chartered Engineer of some standing in the Manchester area, had been in correspondence, when during 1963 he received, from a relative, the copy of a letter from the College of Heralds. Claude repeated this to the author. It appeared that a relative of CSY, the late Mrs. Ethel Dunning, had commissioned the College to establish her antecedence from George Heanes Youatt a 19th.C. London Piano maker hailing from Great Torrington: -- George Heanes Youatt was the third son of John & Grace Youatt. George Heanes and his wife Hephzibah formed a family in London; descendants of George and Hephzibah form one of the largest surviving YOUATT branches conveniently called (by this author) ‘The Manchester Youatts’. (Claude Septimus, a grandson of George Heanes and Hephzibah was, like the rest of his family, born and lived in the Manchester area ). The Heralds produced an interim report in which they showed a clear connection between the Manchester Youatts and an 18/19th.C.family of the same name living in the North Devon village of Newton Tracey. Also noted was the apparent connection with 17th.C. Exeter, where families of similar name once lived in the parish of St. Sidwell. It was intriguing that the author’s family which had Wiltshire roots of the late 19th.C. could not then be linked into the pedigree produced by the Heralds, that there must be a link seemed obvious, but it took a few years of patient research before such a link was established. Starting with a ready made, if incomplete, list of ancestors the first task was to independently check the Heralds findings and see whether additional material could be found that would extend the family even further back.