Is the surname jacobs from england?

Question:

Is the surname jacobs from england?

its my great great fathers surname would really like know thanks

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: You really have to do the research to figure out where your family's name developed. I can give you several good, well-educated guesses, but it's just as possible that your family descends from a Russian Jew who jumped ship in 1620.

Theory 1. Your family descends from a man named Jacob and his sons used his name as the family surname. They may or may not have called themselves Jacobson.

Theory 2. Your ancestors came to England from another country and brought their name with them. Example: You could be one of my cousins. My Jacobs line was originally called Jacques and came from Normandie. Then they went to Alsace and were called by the more German Jacobs. They got kicked out of Alsace because they were Huguenots and went to Amsterdam where they lived for a bit. They were still called Jacobs, which is a common Dutch surname. Then they got tired of Amsterdam and jumped across to London where they lived a bit. But London wasn't much fun. They made their way back to Noord Brabant and lived there for a bit before going back into France. They kept the Jacobs name and live there to this day by that surname. At the expense of repeating something ad nauseum, names don't come from places, people do. People take their names with them wherever they go and the name becomes engrained in a culture after a few generations. Surnames are really very new inventions in the history of man and it's common to find the same names in many different countries...and they're seemingly unrelated.

Theory 3. Your ancestors were Jewish and migrated over time to England. Only research will tell you if it's true.

Theory 4. Jacobs came to England from a statesman from another country who stayed and married into English society.

I know all of these are true of some families in England. The problem is that they're not true of ALL Jacobs families in England. To know which is true of YOUR family you'll have to do the research through civil registers, religious registries, land and probate records. It's such a common name that there is no simple answer to your question.