Waycott

Recorded as Waycot, Waycote, Waycott, Wackett, Whacket, and possibly others, this is a surname which is much associated with the English county of Devon. It means the cottage by the road, is clearly locational, and from some hamlet which was probably in the same spelling as one of the various forms of the surname. The obvious choice is Waycott because the family name is usually spelt that way. The problem is that there does not appear to be any such place in the past four centuries. This is born out by the surname recordings found in church registers which seem to commence about the time of King James 1st of England and V1th of Scotland (1687 - 1625). This was a period when many villages were destroyed to promote sheep farming, and it was also a time when periodic great plagues were sweeping Europe, and wiping out whole communities por driving them away. Perhaps the first recording is that of Mordochoy Wackett. This was dated 1613 when he married Judith Crooke at St. Gregory's church in the city of London, whilst on November 30th 1627 Margaret Waycott married Richard Clarke at St Andrews Plymouth. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.