The Hoots Family

Note | In June 2020, Dad Hoots (webmaster) began updating the site, including adding pictures and links to sources, redesigning for easier navigation, reorganizing to avoid repetition, and updating incomplete or inaccurate info. The website will remain fully accessible throughout the process, which will probably take a few months. Meanwhile, please bear with any errors and inconsistencies between pages, etc. (And let us know about them.)

This web site is dedicated to the memory of Carl Casper Hoots who spent many years researching the Hoots family and wrote The Descendants of Jacob Hoots, and to Rodney Hoots, Carl's nephew, who continued the research and founded The Hoots Family website.

The Hoots family is unique in that virtually all persons in the United States with the surname Hoots are descended from one man, Jacob Hoots of North Carolina. The identity of the first Hoots to come over from the Old World remains uncertain. However, several certainties can be claimed:

The first Hoots in America emigrated from Germany, likely from the Palatinate, a principality in present-day southwestern Germany.

The original (German) spelling of Hoots was Huth. Unlike "Hoots," Huth is not a highly unusual name. Over the first several decades in America, the name Huth underwent variations, including Hutts, Huts, Hutz. By 1794 the spelling for our ancestor's last name settled on Hoots.

The earliest ancestor we can claim with certainty is Jacob Huth/Hutts/Hoots, who in 1778 acquired land at Deep Creek, Surry (Yadkin) County, North Carolina, and settled there with his large family. The document recording the land deal, which spells Jacob's name Hutts, is the first known document of our ancestor Jacob Hoots.

This website follows the path of Jacob Hoots beginning with Johann Michel Huth, possibly his father in Germany, to Jacob Hoots and Margaret Hoots in colonial and post-revolution North Carolina. Check the links page for a guide to more information on other descendants of Jacob Hoots.

If you're new to the Hoots Family story, it will be helpful if you read about the Hoots name and its American origin place, Yadkin County, North Carolina, here: NAMES AND PLACE

More ABOUT the Hoots family genealogists.