The surname variants Yahw, Yaugh, Yawe, Yawll, Yeah, Yeau, Yeawwe, Yee, Yeoe, Yew, Yewe, Yewes, Yeogh, Yo, Yoa, Yoahw, Yoo, Yowe, Yowde and Yowwe are not included in the list of variants registered with the Guild of One-name Studies, but they are included in this study. See also Research by Mike Darch and David Yaw.
The surname de Ou might also be related. There appear to be no occurrences in modern times, but there is an 11th-century reference [note 1].
We have also included people who:
– had Yeo or a variant as a forename, for example Benjamin Yeo Westaway, Yeo Avery or Yeo Simmons
– had Yeo or a variant as part of a hyphenated surname, for example William Yeo-Edwards
– had a mother whose birth name included Yeo or a variant as a surname or forename
– acquired the name Yeo or a variant by marriage
– changed their surname to Yeo or a variant.
Spellings within the same family are not always consistent, so searching by surname is not reliable. For example:
– When Thomas and Mary baptised a daughter Margery at Clawton in 1674 her surname was recorded as Yea in the register. But when Margery married Frances Westlake in the same parish in 1703 her surname was recorded as Yawe.
– Robert and Elizabeth baptised six children at St Decumans, Somerset between 1730 and 1740: for the first two their surname is recorded as Yew and for the remaining three it is recorded as Yaw.
– The parish register for Bampton records the baptism of Joseph Henry Yaw on 1 April 1888 but his birth had been registered (Tiverton 1888 q1) as Joseph Henry Yeo.
– Lucy Ellen Yeo married in Barry in 1923, but her birth was registered in 1876 as Lucy Ellen Yaw.
Note
1. In The History of Devonshire: From the Earliest Period to the Present by the reverend Thomas Moore (Robert Jennings, London, 1829). The author states on p.56 that the manor of Whitstone was given by William the Conqueror to William de Ou, and was afterwards possessed by John de Powderham.