Sources

When this project began in the early 1980's I had no information about even my grandfather. Along the way I met others who were also interested in the Eacott family. On of these persons was Miss E.M. Newton who in 1984 wrote to a number of Eacott's in England. We corresponded and she wrote one day sending me a packet of letters and a note that she was now unwell. I never heard from her again. The letters proved a valuable source and families now might appreciate some of the contents which I reproduce here.

21 the Square
Alveston
Bristol
24.8.84

...................... I am Oive Louise Eacott (69) and am living in the house I was born in, which my father moved into in 1915 (I believe) and his mother Rosalinda Eacott died in. Her Husband Edgar Eacott was a farmer at Earthcott, died at the age of 35 of pneumonia and is buried in the new churchyard here at Alveston. But most of the Eacotts were buried in the Old Alveston Churchyard. I remember when I was quite young seeing several gravestones there full of the Eacott name. One with painted Cherubs and trumpets at its head was dated 16– or so I think............

Certainly on an old ordinance map my husband found that there were several acres of land at Earthcott that were called Eacott's Marsh.
I should be most interested to hear about the Frampton Cotterell Eacotts because my father told me why our family and theirs never spoke again after a refused request for help when his father died at 35 and left his mother a widow in dire straits with a very young family......
Yours Sincerely
Olive O'Neill

ENGLISH NAMING CONVENTIONS.

1. Many countries have naming customs or naming conventions. While not always used, the British had a very highly developed system of naming children. When it is used the naming customs often assists in developing a pedigree. The British naming custom is shown below, but be careful – a variation of the naming custom might have been used or the naming custom might not have been used at all.
For the sons:
1. The eldest son is named after the paternal grandfather.
2. The second son is named after the maternal grandfather.
3. The third son is named after the father.
For the daughters:
1. The eldest daughter is named after the maternal grandmother.
2. The second daughter is named after the paternal grandmother.
3. The third daughter is named after the mother.
Subsequent children would be named after still earlier ancestors, but generally the naming pattern in their cases would be less structured.
All of this is great if all of the children have been found. But if children have been missed it can be very misleading.

Poor laws 1691 and Population Movement in England

If one of your relatives seems suddenly to have disappeared perhaps they were ‘‘REMOVED''. Under the Poor Law anyone incapable of earning a living was likely to be ‘‘examined'' and if legal ‘‘settlement'' to another parish could be established they would be the subject of a removal order.
Few of the associated ‘‘examinations'' have survived but where they have there is a surprising wealth of genealogical information to be found. The majority of the removal orders, not surprisingly, were instigated during the winter months between October and March.

Note: From 1691 settlement was established by birth in a given parish, payment of rent/rates, by apprenticeship to a parishioner or by a year of service within the parish. Anyone wishing to move from one parish to another would not be welcomed unless they had a certificate of settlement which confirmed that the original parish would be responsible if he/she needed poor relief. Each woman was allocated a number and apparently had to be recommended by an employer or respectable person. These laws were renounced in the 1800's.

Names from the Subsidy Rolls for 1327 listing taxpayers

P. Franklin, The Taxpayers of Medieval Gloucestershire. An Analysis of the 1327 Lay Subsidy Roll with a New Edition of its Text (Stroud, 1993);

The extracts taken are about the earliest record of surnames in England. The names are of those whose wealth placed them in a position to be taxed. Likely fairly well off people. Only adult males would be noted.
The names will be largely restricted to yeoman, clothiers, craftsmen, merchants and the wealthier citizens of the parish and hence shouldn't be viewed as an indication of all names in the parish. (From Bigland)
The selection of places include any in Gloucestershire with strong Eycott connections and places with names that could be corrupted to be Eycott/Eacott. The only actual places with Eycott names are North Cerney and Cirencester.

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A description of Eycot Hamlet from History of Rendcomb

In the Middle Ages the parish contained a small hamlet called Eycot, tbe centre of a separate manor which apparently comprised all the land lying west of the Churn. The hamlet had a chapel by the beginning of the 12th century [84] and 8 inhabitants were assessed for the subsidy in 1327 [85] and c. 12 for the poll tax in I38I.[86] There were still a few tenants at Eycot in 1442 [87] but no later record has been found of the hamlet, though the manor-house, which was absorbed with the rest of the manor into the Rendcomb estate, was recorded by the name Eycot Farm until i732.[88] The name of the hamlet, derived from a cottage near an island or water meadow,[89] suggests that the site of Eycot was down by the Churn and it seems likely that the manor-house survives as the oldest part of Lodge Farm (renamed Rendcomb Manor in the 20th century), which stands by a ford near the north end of Rendcomb park. If that is the case the final disappearance of the hamlet may possibly be associated with the creation of the park some time before 1544. In the late 18th century Lodge Farm, so called by 1777 [90] was the centre of farm which included Eycot field, evidently a former open field of the manor, and most of the other land on that side of the river.[91] The house dates partly from the 17th century but has an early-19th-century wing and some 2oth-century additions in Cotswold style. The farm buildings at Eycot field were the only buildings on the high ground on that side of the river in I837[92]but c. 1930 a large Cotswold-style residence, called Aycote House, designed by Norman Jewson, was built for the owner of a small estate established in that part of the parish after the break-up of the Rendcomb estate.[93]

[82] C. H. C. Osborne, J. C. James, and K. L. James, Hist. of Rendcomb Coll (Oxford, 1976), 23—4,29, 121, 152—7.

[83]Ex inf. the headmaster, Mr. R. M. A. Medill
‘[84]Hist. &Cart. Mon. Glouc. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 41.
[85] Gb:. Subsidy Roil, 1327, 14.
E179/I13/35a rot.2a
•[87] Glos. R.O., D 678, ct. rolls 94.
‘[88]4 Ibid.D3~6/Tio.
[89]"P.N.Glos.i 161.
‘[90]4 Taylor, Map of Glos. (1777)

Dobunni/Dubunni

The name derivation may be from a fertility goddess, but is again uncertain. They occupied a large area centred on Gloucestershire.

The Dobunni were fierce rivals of the Catuvellauni and seem to have lost some eastern territory to them shortly before the Roman invasion. Although they initially submitted to the Romans, their area was later rife with stubborn resistance to Roman rule and a legionary fortress was founded at Gloucester/Glevum. During Boudica''s Revolt the Roman commander here felt unable to bring his garrison to the aid of the hard-pressed Roman forces, which brought the Romans close to losing the whole island.

The later Roman capital of the civitas was Cirencester/Corinium. However, this seems to have been a case of the Romans relocating a centre from an earlier, easily defensible site, (in this case Bagendon, an Iron Age hillfort) to a more easily controlled lowland site, often retaining the old name. So the site represented is Bagendon, slightly altered to a more Keltic Bagendun. Of the other sites, Wanborough/Durocornovion seems to have been a secondary capital, although the name suggests it originally belonged to the neighbouring Cornovii. The other 3 sites are chosen to give a geographic spread in the territory. Weston-under-Penyard/Ariconium and Worcester/Vertis were centers in the Roman period. Somewhere was needed in the south-west which is where Ptolemy the Geographer places a so-far-undiscovered center called Ischalis, which we have used. It has to be said that this name is rather similar to Isca, the capital of the Durotriges, and it is possible that Ptolemy or his source had got muddled.

Eycott / Vyner Connection - an analysis and the life of Berkeley