The Surname Jeggo

A Single Family Origin

In his recent book, David Hey (1) makes frequent use of his database of names in the indexes of deaths registered in England and Wales in 1842-46.  Just 11 Jeggo deaths were registered in this period;  9 were registered in the neighbouring registration districts of Halstead and Braintree, which cover the Gosfield area, one was in Witham, Essex, a dozen miles away, and the remaining one was in London.  According to the criteria propounded by David Hey, this makes Jeggo a rare surname with a high probability of single-family origin.

The same pattern is clear when the survey is extended to all the indexes (of births, marriages and deaths) for the thirty year period 1837-66 (i.e., about one generation).

Jeggo	Total	Halstead	Braintree	Elsewhere
births	72	45	19	8:-  2 London, 1 Herts., 5 Beds. Of these, all but one London one are known to have Gosfield parents.
marriages	33	21	2	10:-  3 Essex, 3 London, 2 Hants., 1 Suffolk, 1 Kent. The 2 Hampshire ones and one of the London ones are known to have Gosfield origins.
deaths	40	26	7	7:-  2 Essex, 4 London, 1 Beds. The Bedfordshire one and one of the London ones are known to be young children of Gosfield parents.

It is possible to construct a plausible family tree comprising all the Gosfield family groups, with Thomas and Elizabeth Jig(g)oe at the head, but this requires many assumptions for which we have no evidence as yet.  The first Jeggo entry in Gosfield parish registers is the burial in 1695 of a child of Thomas Gigos, followed by the baptisms of Thomas and Jane, the son and daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Jigoe, in 1700, and the baptisms of Edward and Matthew, the sons of Thomas and Eliz. Jiggoe, in 1703.  Thus this family appears to have moved into Gosfield at the end of the seventeenth century;  we have not yet found where they moved from.

Other Early Jeggo References

Early Jeggo references in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) are now listed on a separate page.

We have not yet found any evidence to link any of the above to the Gosfield Jeggoes, but we plan to continue searching the parish registers of nearby parishes.  We have not yet found any evidence that any Jeggo lines other than the Gosfield ones have persisted to modern times, although there are a few isolated 'strays' who need to be accounted for.

A Variant of Jago?

Reaney (3) states that the Cornish Jago and Welsh Iago mean 'James', Hanks and Hodges (4) state that the Cornish Jago (or Jagoe) and Jeggo mean 'Jack', while
Bardsley (5) states that Jago is a baptismal name meaning "the son of James, from the Spanish Iago, which must have crossed over into Cornwall at some early period.  The surname is fairly well established in that county."

However, new ideas have entered the study of surname history since Reaney's days.  Reaney was a philologist, and an expert on English place names as well as personal names.  David Hey (1) quotes Reaney:
"The purpose of a Dictionary of Surnames is to explain the meaning of names, not to treat of genealogy and family history".
Hey praises Reaney:
"The name that is pre-eminent in the study of surnames in the third quarter of the twentieth century is that of P. H. Reaney.",
and states that Reaney's books "remain standard texts and the essential introductions to the subject".

Hey then goes on to describe how the subject has broadened beyond the limits which Reaney set himself:
"Yet, as Reaney himself recognised, the study of surname history 'will be a long task demanding patient industry and accuracy [that] cannot be satisfactorily concluded without the cooperation of philologists, genealogists and historians'.  Reaney's work is open to the criticism that it takes no account of the past or present distributions of surnames."

A first look at the geographical distributions of Jago and Jeggo (see below) casts doubt on the hypothesis that Jeggo is a variant of Jago.  Jago is found predominantly in Cornwall and Devon, and hardly at all in Essex, while Jeggo is found predominantly in Essex and not at all in Cornwall or Devon.

A question which therefore arises from Hanks & Hodges (4) is whether there once were Jeggoes in Cornwall, but they have since died out or moved away (to Essex?).

There is a story handed down in the Jeggo families concerning the origin of the family and the name.  Various forms of it have been related by various people amongst Charles Jeggo's descendants and in Penny's Tree.  One thing common to all the stories is that the family originated in two brothers.  Sometimes their name is said to be Jago.  Sometimes they are said to have come from Spain (sometimes, at the time of the Armada), sometimes from Cornwall, and sometimes from Spain via Cornwall.  It is not possible at this time to assess how much of this verbal tradition is true oral history and how much is addenda from the many textbooks on surname origins.

A Variant of Jeg(g)on?

Jegon-Jego deed

Matthew Jeggo and a Wethersfield parish register

Earls Colne Village Records

There is a surname index;  it contains eight people named Jegon, and no-one else whose name might be Jeggo, Jago, Jagger or any variant of these.  The variants of these peoples' names are:  Gigen, Giggen, Giggers, Gigon, Gigone, Gygon, Jeggen, Jeggens, Jeggon, Jegrun, Jygen, Jyggon.  The one which interests me, the only one without an 'n', is Giggers, encountered just once in connection with Thomas Allen alias Jegon (person no. A242 in the CU database).  Extracts from a few of the seventy (approx.) references to Thomas are as follows:

Source	Reference	Date	Doc. No.*	Extract from text
Archdeaconry Act Book	ERO D/ACA25	10 March 1601	1700310	... Thos Allen also Jeggens of Earls Colne ...
Consistory Court Office Act Book	LRO DL/C/303	29 March 1602	2100112	... Thos Allen alias Giggers of Earls Colne ...
Archdeaconry Act Book	ERO D/ACA25	29 April 1601	1700328	... Thos Allen also Jeggen of Earls Colne ...
Harlakenden Account Book	ERO Temp.Acc.897	6 April 1620	22800480	... received of Thos Allen for my half years rent for Millhill (447) ...
Harlakenden Account Book	ERO Temp.Acc.897	15 March 1621	22800750	... received of Thos Jegon for a quarters rent due at michaelmas last for (447) Windmillhill ...
* in the CU database

This does not in itself suggest a connection between Jegon and Jeggo, but well illustrates the variety of ways in which one person's name can be recorded.

A Variant of Jagger?

A Variant of Jégo?

There is an online French telephone directory which is quite easy to search;  the results are as follows:
There are 1268 entries for Jego in France.  The numbers in the five départements comprising Brittany are:  523 are in Morbihan (S), 119 are in Côtes-d'Armor (N), 111 are in Loire-Atlantique (SE), 47 are in Finistère (W) and 35 are in Ille-et-Vilaine (NE)  --  together, 66% of the total.  There are 38 in Paris.

Marie-Thérèse Morlet (6) states that

1. Jégo, Jégou are Breton names (variants: Gégou, Gego), contraction of Jezegou, derived from Judocus, which corresponds to a Low Latin name Judocius;  and
2. Jagu, Jagou are Breton forms, derived from Jacob, Iacu and Iagu in old Breton since 833;  but also
3. Jégu, Breton name, variant of Jagu.

A Survey of Surname Distributions

In drawing conclusions below, London has been disregarded because a substantial fraction of its growth has always been due to immigration from the rest of the country and the rest of the world.

Abbreviations

Jeggo etc.

Predominantly Essex, with a few elsewhere in East Anglia.

Iago

Iago is predominantly Welsh.  It is not found in East Anglia.

Jago etc.

Thus Jago and variants are found overwhelmingly in Cornwall and Devon.

Je(g)gon etc.

Many rare names here, but they all have an East Anglian flavour, with Essex predominant.

Jagger etc.

Overwhelmingly Yorkshire and neighbouring counties, but with a few in Essex and other East Anglian counties.  None in Cornwall and a paltry one in Devon.  The rarer Jaggers and Jaggars are found more in London than in Yorkshire.

Jaeger etc.

These are mostly imported foreign names, although it looks as if Jager and Jagar are sometimes variants of Jagger and Jaggar.  This table provides no evidence to connect Jeggo with any of these names.

Jaggard etc.

These names are probably not related to Jeggo.  The distributions are distinctive.

Jego etc.

An interesting mixture of West Country and East Anglia.

Odds and Ends

A Huguenot Name?

Conclusions

Reaney's assertion (3) that it is a variant of Jago gets no support from the geographical distributions above.  Nearly all occurrences of Jago and variants are in Cornwall and Devon, and it is virtually absent from East Anglia.  There are some occurrences of Jagoe in Ireland;  Iago is predominantly Welsh.  On the other hand, occurrences of Jeggo are predominantly in Essex, and elsewhere in East Anglia, but the name is absent in Cornwall and Devon, Ireland and Wales.

However, one cannot conclude that Reaney is wrong.  It is possible that a Jago moved to Essex and that the pronunciation and spelling changed as a result, to something closer to an Essex name, such as Jeg(g)on.  The traditional Jeggo story could still be true.  The best that can be done is to regard it as a hypothesis, for which further evidence is required.  Much the same can be said about Jégo.

The idea that Jeggo is a variant of Jagger is not a serious contender.  It was included because there is uncertainty over the name of one family in Bocking.  It seems likely that this family was originally called Jeggo, but for some reason presently unknown to me decided to change its name to Jagger, in fairly recent times, circa 1850 - 1860.  Further evidence for this is being sought.  Jagger is a distinctive Yorkshire name.  It means a man in charge of packhorses, a carrier or carter, a hawker or pedlar (see Hey(1), Reaney(3), or McKinley(7)). There is virtually no overlap between its geographical distribution and that of Jeggo.

That leaves Jegon and variants and the many similar names which have been collected together in one table above because their geographical distributions are so similar.  Reaney states that Jeggons, Jiggen(s) and Jiggins are variants of Judkins, probably from Jukin.  "Jek-un, Juk-in, Jok-in are diminutives of Jok or Juk, a short form of Breton Judicael, with its variants Juk-, Jok-, Jek-, Gik-."  Reaney also derives Jekyll and many variants including Jickles and Jiggle from the same name - Old Breton Iudicael.  Hanks and Hodges (4) also connect Jeggons, Jiggen, Jiggins, Jiggle and Juggins to Jekyll and thence to Old Breton Iudicael.

On the other hand, Bardsley (5) has the entry:
"Jiggens, Jeggins, Jeggs, Jegen.  -  Baptismal 'the son of Jegg', whence the diminutive Jeggon.  Jiggens or Jeggins is the genitive, as in Jennings, Jones, Williams, etc..  There can be little doubt that the original name was Jackson (i.e., little Jack), which became Jaggin or Jeggin.  Jack is found as Jagg in early rolls, and is so styled by the author of Piers Plowman.  The surname Jeggins seems to have arisen in county Essex, where Jeggins, Jeggs, and Jaggs are still to be met with."

You pays your money and you takes your choice!

The geographical distribution of the name Jeggo matches that of Jeg(g)on(s) and variants.  There is also the intriguing 1668 transfer of property from John Jegon of Sible Hedingham to his son William Jego, which needs further investigation.  There seems to be a good case for Jeggo being a variant of Jegon/Jeggon.  Nevertheless, further evidence is required.

The possibility of Huguenot origins spans the above considerations.  The Huguenot records contain references to

Gegu, Jegu, Jigou, Jego, Gego, Jegut, Gigu, Gigot, Gegot	possible variants of Jeggo, Jiggo, Giggo etc
Jago, Jagot, Jagau	possible variants of Jago etc
Gigon, Gygon	possible variants of Jeg(g)on etc

The Huguenot hypothesis can neither be ruled out nor accepted.  Once again, further evidence is required.

The main conclusion at this stage, therefore, is that the history of the surname is inextricably intertwined with the history of its bearers.  The origin of the name can only be found by genealogy, by seeking the origins of the family.

References