This Study was new in 2021, although I had been toiling to find the origins of my branch of the family bearing this surname for over 20 years. It is small in scope, the estimated occurrence of the surname in the 1881 England & Wales being approximately 207 including main variants (data from FamilySearch).

The elusiveness of my 3rd great grandfather Robert Jauncey and spelling variations of his name led to my collecting unrelated families in the hunt for naming patterns and migration, and geographical patterns to the spelling variations.  This has not been a well-organised pursuit until now, so it is my hope that joining the Guild and starting a profile will enforce some discipline!

It is my intention to make the study international, although so far I have concentrated on England, especially focussed on clusters around Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

Where a particular individual, branch or name cluster has been written about in published studies, I shall not copy those details, but shall include references and links.

Rationale:

My great great grandfather Alfred JAUNCEY (1813-1865) was recorded with and used this spelling from the time of his marriage in 1839, where he named his father as Robert JAUNCEY, farmer.  Alfred was a policeman and plumber, and featured in trade listings and as an arresting officer in Gazette reports.  I struggled to find any earlier documentation for Alfred or Robert, but after much hunting I finally found Alfred's baptism 8 Sep 1813 in Stonham Aspal, Suffolk with the spelling JOHNCEY. 

There were no further occurrences of either JAUNCEY or JOHNCEY spelling in parish records for Suffolk, and it seemed likely his father Robert had migrated for work, especially as the highest concentration of JAUNCEY was in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, with a relatively smaller concentration in Middlesex.  Stonham Aspal turns out to have been Alfred's mother's parish. There were clues in the baptism record, as it was stated his father Robert, servant, was a legal settled habitant of nearby Hadleigh, Suffolk, but resident in London.  The record named his mother as Jane, but I failed to find a marriage for a Robert to a Jane with any spelling variation I could think of, including wildcards. However, the members of the Facebook group "Family History in Suffolk ..... The Suffolk Surname List" came up trumps and found a Robert JONCEY marrying a Jane SOAR in 1809 at the parish of St Andrew by the Wardrobe, London.  Jane SOAR was from Stonham Aspal parish, Suffolk. 

The charming Robert JONCEY was reported in Old Bailey proceedings: "ROBERT JONCEY was indicted for bigamy. But as the first marriage could not be proved, the prisoner was ACQUITTED . Second Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Justice Bayley."  (Old Bailey Proceedings Online, www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 28 March 2021, May 1817, trial of ROBERT JONCEY t18170521-42). Robert was subsequently accused at the 1819 Newington Quarter Sessions, charged with "with unlawfully running away, and leaving his said wife and one child, whereby they are now chargeable to the said Parish." He was "Discharged by proclamation." (Surrey Quarter Sessions 1780-1820, transcripts on FindMyPast).  I have not found any clearly identifiable trace of slippery Robert thereafter.  Name change and/or emigration are on my list of possibilities.

There is no separate entry for JOHNCEY in the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names (Hanks et al, 2016), but JOHNSEY is noted as a variant of JAUNCEY, so I have now added this spelling; it is the second-most frequent for post-1837 birth registrations in this study.

I have included JANCEY/JANCY, JANNCEY, and JAUNCY,  as variants, as there were people who went through life with these spellings, although these also occur as deviant spellings, as do versions with 's' in place of 'c.' 

As a side line to my study, I am interested in the CHAUNCY name and variants, due this being one of the suggested original spellings. I am researching evidence for a connection.  However, there are already numerous genealogies and profiles for various armigerous bearers of this name, and it will be outside the main scope of my One-Name Study.

Deviant Spellings and/or Transcription Errors

An ever-growing list! These include parish early records.

Other surnames found mis-transcribed as Jauncey/Jancey/Joncey/Johnsey

Some examples of results returned by searches on the main commercial sites, where the original image (when available) is clearly a different name:

FAUCET

JENNEY

JOHANSON

JOHNSON

JOYCE

SOUCEY

TANSEY

TANZEY

YANNCEY

The name YANCEY has been extensively researched by Dennis J. Yancey, The Yancey Family Surname Resource Centre   and he does include Jauncey amongst his “Surnames Similar In Spelling Or Phonetics To The Surname Yancey And Other Surnames Which May Be Related” pages.

There seems to be no firm evidence base for the origins of the name JAUNCEY, and it is a murky area due to the phonetic similarity with O'Shaughnessy, Johns and, for that matter, Jones.  The best guesses suggest it is a French locative name, but due to the spelling similarity between JOHNSEY and John, there are speculative suggestions of it being patronymic in origin (see below); the -"y" suffix being interpreted as a possible diminutive. 

The Internet Surname Database suggests Jauncey is a locative name with Medieval French origins, a corruption of CHAUNCEY: see https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Jauncey © Copyright: Name Origin Research 1980 - 2017

Ancestry UK website, however, suggests a different French origin:

"From Gency in Cergy Val d'Oise or Janzé Ille-et-Vilaine France."

Source cited: The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, 2016

Ref: Hanks, P., Coates, R., McClure, P., Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016), available as an ebook here: The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland

There is no separate entry for JOHNCEY in Hanks et al (2016), but JOHNSEY is listed as a variant of JAUNCEY.

The name JOHNCEY (with JOHNSEY as a variant) has an entry in the International Surname Database, but its claims are largely speculative and unsourced: https://surnamedb.com/surname/johncey

"Recorded in a number of spellings including Hansie, Jancey, Jansey, Jancy, Jansie, Jencey, Johncey, Johnsey, Johnsee, Joinsey, Joncey, Jonsey, and even Ginsie, Gaunsey, and Yancey, this is probably an English surname, although it could be Dutch or Flemish. Its origins are obscure and unproven, although it has been suggested that it may be the forerunner of the American descriptive word Yankee. However spelt it is almost certainly one of the many patronymics which developed from the ancient Christian name John or Johann... "

The British Surnames website, equally unsourced, also suggests both patronymic and French origins (the key phrase here is "is believed to come from...")

https://britishsurnames.uk/surname/jauncey

“Jauncey is a surname of British origin that has roots in medieval England. The name is believed to come from the Old French name "Jonice" or "Jonissi," which originally meant "little John" or "John's son." Over time, the name evolved into Jauncey and became a distinct surname."

1881 Census

JAUNCEY (exact spelling) in England & Wales 1881 census found by FindyPast: 172 or Ancestry: 198

Approximate 1881 total including main variants according to FamilySearch data: 207

Births per Year (raw data) registered in England & Wales 1837-1990

As indexed by FreeBMD https://www.freebmd.org.uk/:

Those with fewer than 10 births in total over the range of years captured seem likely to be deviant spellings rather than true variants, and indeed the instances indexed as JANNCEY found in various documents often turned out to be JAUNCEY when the original was scrutinised.  

When I first compiled this table, I had not included names with 's' instead of 'c', e.g. JOHNSEY or JANSEY, but the Oxford Dictionary of Names (Hanks et al, 2016) cites JOHNSEY as a variant of JAUNCEY, whilst none of the other spellings are listed.  I have work to do on this, but have now added JOHNSEY.  No births for JANSEY are indexed.

Prevalence of 'Jauncey' (exact spelling) surname in raw Census data (collected from FindMyPast.co.uk) 

England & Wales censuses & 1939 Register:

Heaviest cluster for JAUNCEY in 1881: Herefordshire (actual 54, 45 per 100,00) and Worcestershire (actual 41, 11 per 100,000).  

(Archer, S. (2017). Archer Software's British 19th Century Surname Atlas. Available as CD-Rom, from http://www.archersoftware.co.uk )

Numbers outside of England at this time were low: 12 in the USA in 1880, according to https://forebears.io  

JOHNCEY/JOHNSEY and close variants in 1881 were low in number but formed a cluster centred around Gloucestershire (22 actual, 4 per 100,000) and Oxfordshire (15 actual, 8 per 100,000), with a separate cluster (if it can be called that) spread across Yorkshire West Riding (10, below 1 per 100,000), Yorkshire North Riding (5, 1 per 100,000), County Durham (1) and Northumberland (4 actual, 1 per 100.000).

I have tested with Ancestry, 23andMe and LivingDNA, and uploaded to MyHeritage, GEDmatch and MyFamilyTreeDNA.

I am not aware of any Y-DNA study relating to this name.

GEDmatch kit number: FM731822C1

I have a cluster of 4th Cousin-sized matches on Ancestry who are related to each other and have the surname JAUNCEY 2-3 generations back in their trees. I have built a research tree and pushed back beyond their research to a John JAUNCEY born about 1773 in Hereford, but have not so far found a link to my 3rd great grandfather Robert whose guesstimated year of birth would be around 1790.

Other Jauncey studies:

New York, Bermuda and Jamaica

These two studies were compiled by a descendant of this successful branch of the Jauncey name who came to New York from Bermuda, written when some of the events were within recent memory, and gives a sketch of their place in the pre- and post-revolutionary society.

The Colonel and Mrs Thorn by Dr Marianne de Pierres

The Colonel and Mrs Thorn

Tying into the New York and Bermuda Jauncey families is this very readable blog (and likely future book) by writer Dr Marianne de Pierres.  Marianne is researching her ancestor Herman THORN (1783-1859), who married Mary Jane JAUNCEY (1790-1873) of New York in 1810; a fascinating family saga ensues.  She also puts flesh on the outlines of the Jauncey ship captains and privateers who were Mary Jane Jauncey's ancestors. Marianne explains that the Jauncey surname was retained by Herman and Mary Jane's children for inheritance reasons.  (Accessed 6 Nov 2024)

I am immensely grateful to Marianne, who has kindly given me permission to link to her blog here (and on the website for this Study when it has been developed).

Yancey Family Genealogical Database: Jauncey of New York and Bermuda collated by Dennis J Yancey; this draws on the earlier works cited above. The weblink to this study (originally accessed 2021) now triggers a security warning, so I have removed it, 09/03/2024.

Who was Mary Ann Johncey?  September 13, 2020 Blog entry  by Peter N Clark on his Birds of Cressingham family history website, accessed 09/03/2024: Who was Mary Ann Johncey? – Birds of Cressingham (wordpress.com)

More clues on Mary Ann Johncey  March 5, 2021 Blog entry by Peter N Clark as above, includes links to further updates:  More clues on Mary Ann Johncey – Birds of Cressingham (wordpress.com)

With thanks to Peter Clark for permission to include these links here.  Peter reached out to me via Ancestry messages after finding some of my research.