Watts

Origins of surname

This surname was introduced into both England and Scotland by the Normans in the form Wattier or Wautier a compound of the Germanic elements wald, meaning 'to rule' and heri- an army.

Early records

Francois Watts, from England (we suspect he was Francis, but adopted the local spelling for his wedding record) married Marie Hamon, daughter of Nicolas, in St Lawrence in 1690. Their five children were baptised in St Helier between 1691 and 1699.

James and Anne Kitchin really set the ball rolling for the Watts family in Jersey, with 12 children baptised between 1710 and 1731.

Variants

• Watts
• Walt
• Watt
• Wattin
• Watson
• Wattins
• Wattis

Family records

Family trees

• Descendants of Robert Watts
• Descendants of Stephen Watts
• Descendants of James Watts
• Descendants of James Watts and Ann Kitchin

Church records

Tips for using these links

• Watts baptisms in Jersey
• Watts marriages in Jersey (groom)
• Watts marriages in Jersey (bride)
• Watts burials in Jersey

Prominent family members

• John Watts, headmaster of Les Quennevais school in the 1960s

Great War service

• Watts family members who served in World War 1

Family wills

• Watts family wills from 1663 to 1980 held by Jersey Archive

Burial records

• Watts burial records 1820-1978

Family businesses

• Robert Watts was a soap maker at 34 King Street in the 1830s, followed by Joseph Watts, a tallow chandler, in the 1840s

Family album

• 

  H L Watts, Celtics' goalkeeper on a 1925 cigarette card

• 

  A Watts, Celtics' winger on a 1925 cigarette card

Family gravestones

Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs

• 

  Watts - Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

Tips

The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.

We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling

The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.

New records

Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form

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