Jeffcoat Family Ancestry and History

The Jeffcoat Family (Protestant) most likely descended from the Ulster (North Ireland) Protestants, who composed a large part of the population of Ulster. They were Scots and English who were settled there by James I, ruler of Scotland and England in the early 16th century before this, Ireland was completely Catholic. In 1641 Ulster Catholics rebelled and put to death thousands of these Protestant settlers, but they were crushed by Cromwell's armies after many bitter years of fighting, and power remained with the Protestants.

Sometime during the 16th century the Jeffcoat family migrated to England and by the late seventeen-hundreds there were Jeffcoats in four adjoining counties, namely, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and North Hampshire. Mr. L. A. Parker, county archivist, Leicestershire, England, writes - "The main concentration of the Jeffcote family in the seventeenth century appears to have been Hinckley in the southwest of Leicestershire. By the late eighteenth century, however, I note from an Index to Wills preserved here that the family had moved as far as Breedon, in the northwest of the county."

Information from Mr. P. E. King, Esquire, North Hamptonshire, England, follows:

In 1702 at Fawsley, North Hamptonshire, Richard Jeffcutt married Miss Mary Warwick. Richard Jeffcutt was a town bailiff in 1713. The Will of Alice Jeffcutt of Crack Bow Lane, North Hamptonshire, was proved in 1739 and mentions her eldest son, Richard, and another son, Nicholas. Elisabeth Jeffcutt was a tenant in Crack Bow Lane in 1763. However, research has proved the American Jeffcoats did not come from North Hampton.

The following data collected by Dr. Rheim M. Jones, Idaho Falls, Idaho, leads one to believe our Jeffcoat family came from the County of Warwickshire. The Christian names are similar to our 1850 South Carolina Census, and there is a Samuel who could possibly be our Samuel's great-grandfather.