Betancourt

Recorded as Betancour, Betancourt, Betencourt, Bethancourt, Bettencourt and possibly others, this is an aristocratic medieval locational French surname. It derives from a place in the Flanders Somme region, although subsequently coats of arms have been granted to various branches of the family name including one in Portugal, as well the province of Normandy, and several in the departement of Artois. The Dictionnaire Etymologique de France describes the Portugese nameholders as being of ''an ancient family of emigrants''. These may be the holders of the arms which have a white field, a red bend dexter, charged with three sea shells, usually the sign of the pilgrim. Over the centuries people left France because of either the civil wars between the Catholics and the Protestants, from about 1580 to 1750, or later to flee the Revolution of 1792. Unfortunately the surviving records of much of European heraldry generally fail to give the date of the grant or the grantor. The place name literally means ''The stone court'' with a court originally being an area where the horses were gathered, but in time came to describe a palace, large house, or a place where the courts of justice met. Unfortunately the majority of early French Registers dating back to the 14th century were destroyed by ''an excess of zeal'' of the Revolutionaries in 1792 and the period up to 1795. However we have found a few including Robert Betancourt at St Germaine en Laye, Seine et Oise, on January 30th 1733, and Jacques Betencourt, at Berneville, Pas de Calais, on December 31st 1740. These recordings were in the reign of King Louis XV of France (1714 - 1774).