This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: donkelly Surnames: PRUITT, PRUETT Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.kentucky.counties.garrard/3883/mb.ashx Message Board Post: For those who may have Pruitt, Pruett in your ancestral tree, a couple of deep digging researchers have herein summarized......along with facts, conclusions, comments and other musings My mom once said her Pruitts came from England, but she didn't know where they lived or when they came to America. One: An Ancient Name We shall never know who that person was who first bore the surname which became, over time, Pruett. He may well have been a Norman soldier or journeyman who came to England either with or following the Conquest in 1066. Another possibility is that he may have been a half-savage Welshman from the western Marches. Many years ago, there was a Pruitt family reunion held in South Carolina. A member of the Pruitt family, Dr. L.C. Branyon, addressed the reunion and later reprinted his talk in a small pamphlet which was obtained by my father, Jeff W. Pruett. Dr. Branyon said he had researched the name at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia and at Emory University in Atlanta. He had this to say about the Pruett origins: "I have been able to trace the earliest historical beginnings of the family and name back to the 11th century, or more than eight hundred years. By the usual application of the laws of ethnology and genealogy, I find that the first trace of the name appears as Norman blood, with a name strikingly similar to the present name. At this early stage I find the names Guelliaum Pritte, Johan Pritt, Jean Proute enrolled in the army of William the Conqueror. There, after the Saxon tongue became blended with the Norman French, during the next 200 years. giving rise to old English, we find the name appearing as Prewett which was maintained for several centuries even into Scotland". Whoever that first Pruett was, he began a line bearing a name which has come down for many centuries. The practice of affixing surnames to people is relatively modern. The time line of recorded history now runs nearly five thousand years. Throughout most of that time, people lived their lives with only one name. Population was thin and people rarely went very far from the place of their birth during their lifetimes. One supposes that the kings and other nobility assumed they were so important that everyone knew who was who. The common folk, of course, didn't count, anyway. Attaching some kind of description became more common, however, in the late middle ages in England and many other parts of Europe when people were often identified as "of" some place or "the" as in a tradesman. Thus, John-from-the-place-where-apples-grow soon became John Appleby or John the cooper, became John Cooper from the trade he followed. In time, other descriptive titles were used such as John the Short or John the Bold plus descriptions of places such as woods, hill, fields, river, church and so on. Some of them stuck and were adopted by descendants, who thus acquired surnames. The universal lack of uniformity, however, makes family tracking back into those times virtually impossible unless there is a public record involving persons of high rank. In any event, the name Pruett is a venerable one which, in one form or another, has appeared in English historical chronicles many times over the centuries. It has been spelled in a variety of ways. One account suggests that its ancient origin may have been a combination of an archaic French root prue or prew (proud) plus the affixes ett or itt, which are identical. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Surnames the root of the name is an Old French word translated as b valiant, doughtyb and related to Prowse, Prewett and all the other derivations. Perhaps our family's originator was known by some appellation such as William the Proud (Guillaume le Prew). Phonetic spellings of names were common until spelling became somewhat codified during the last 100 years or so. Prewitt, Prouitt, Prout, and Puete are a few examples of such variations. Our family name does not appear to be related to a trade such as are many English surnames. The name as used in English-speaking countries is probably related to the Anglo Saxon word "prut" or "pryte" also denoting "proud", "gallant" or even "arrogant", probably imported by the Normans after 1066 and clearly cousin of the words noted above. The affixes (ett and itt) are diminutives denoting "small" or "son of" as in Adamson, Ericsson etc. Among the variants of the name found in European and American records are Pruet, Prouet, Prouett, Prewitt, etc. While it is probable that some distant ancestor came to Britain from France, there is, of course, no proof and the comments here are purely speculative. In 1995, Raymond Pruitt of Cleveland, TN conducted considerable research in England attempting to track down early records of Prewett families (the most dominant spelling of the name). He found Prewett records back to the 1500's with a heavy representation of the name in the Salisbury, Wiltshire area. He provided to Richard Prewitt a long list of his findings beginning with Margerye Prewett in 1575. The Hall of Names, Ltd. in Great Britain reports that the name Pruett (or its recognizable variations) has been found in ancient Welsh chronicles pre-dating 1066. Therefore, the name's origins may not be French. This source says that the name was first found in Carmarthenshire in Wales. Versions of the family name appear as early as the thirteenth century in such records as the Domesday Book, Hearth Rolls, the Black Book of Exchequer and the Curia Rolls. In 1202, Matthew Pruet was listed in the "Pipe Rolls". In another document it was recorded that in 1249 William Pruet and his son, Adam, "did damage to the King's property in Winchester". The Inquest record does not tell us what punishment befell our ancient cousins for this deed. We also learn from the Charter Rolls of King Henry VIII that in 1273 the Earl of Darby released Reginald Pruet and his issue and their lands and holdings from "servetutem" and made them freemen. In 1273,, Andrew and William Pruet were mentioned in the "Hundred Rolls of Cambridge". In 1275, Henry Pruet was pardoned a twelve shilling fine for contempt. In 1278, Hugh Pruet of Somerset went surety for B# 40 and in 1317, Thomas Pruwet of Devon was mentioned in Dwelly's Name Indices. (All of the foregoing references were reported by Richard Prewitt in his published Prewitt-Pruitt Family chronicles). In those times, it was not uncommon for a person to be born with a surname spelled one way, marry and change the spelling, then have another version inscribed on his or her headstone marking a final place of rest. Other versions of the name from these sources include Prewett, Prewert and Prewitt. Many of these names are to be found in use today in Wales and in other parts of the British Isles. While there has been a good deal of serious and scholarly work done to track down various branches of the Pruett family, there is one account the author obtained from a source in England which, while perhaps a bit fanciful, resonates with the romance of the Middle Ages. A portion of this material follows: "The Welsh family name Pruett emerged [from the period following the Norman Conquest] as a notable family name in Carmarthen where they were recorded as a family of great antiquity seated as Lords of the manor and estates in that shire. They were descended from Cadivor Vawn, Lord of Blaen Cuch in Dyved. By the 13th century they had branched to Dolwyn, Plas Landra, Hawkserook, and Llaugharne and Egremond in Carmarthenshire. In 1202 the name was found in Somerset when Mathhew Pruett was Lord of the manor in that shire. In 1278 Thomas, Walter and Julianna Pruett were all land holders in Somerset. The name was interchangeably Prytherch and Pruett, where the 'y'in Welch being pronounced 'u'". Hall of Names, Ltd., London An early record of the name was the "Hundred Rolls" in the County of Cambridge in 1273 listing Andrew and William Pruet. Records from 1327 in Somersetshire list Thomas Pruwet, Walter Prowet and Juliana Prouet, most probably the same source as above with the spelling modernized by the Hall of Records. Mary Pruett, said to have been a nurse of London, who died in 1717, is buried at St. Dionis Backchurch, London. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, migration from England to America was steady in spite of the hazards involved. There is also slim evidence of the familybs presence in Ireland. One scholar of Irish names has recorded the name Prut (also Prute) and the Middle English version, Prout and Proute. The author states: bThis surname came into Ireland before the middle of the 13th century. The family settled in Kilkenny and Tiperary, the latter of which counties, at least, it is still extantb. A typical pattern of movement of Americans during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was Westward. By the reckoning of that era, central North Carolina was considered west of Virginia, across the mountains. Migrations into South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama were even further west as the frontier of American civilization moved on. There appear to have been several coats of arms granted in the Middle Ages to people bearing the Pruett surname. The most ancient one was "silver with a black lion rampant" sometimes with a raven crest and bearing the motto Deus Pascit Corvos. Another coat is described as "azure - a chevron between lions rampant or (gold or yellow)". Another motto associated with the name is "Loyal and Trustworthy" found cut into tombstones bearing the family crest in Gloustershire. Tracing direct descent from families granted these specific arms would be difficult. One internet source illustrated the crest here without explanation. Its authenticity is doubtful. The foregoing survey does not necessarily suggest that our specific family and the other descendants of Samuel Pruett of Coosa County were in a direct line of descent from Welsh Lords of the Late Middle Ages or others of distinguished history. However, it is doubtless true that the name Pruett is an ancient and honorable one and has persisted for many centuries. Even the amateur researcher in genealogy such as this writer recognizes early in his studies that sometimes records can be grossly misleading. Tracking down ancestors by surname sometimes reveals that an ambitious ancestor simply changed his name somewhere along the line for any number of reasons -political expediency, to escape the law, change over a generation or two due to illiteracy and so on. Those of us who would fancy that we had a duke or lord of the manor might be well advised to ponder on the reality that the noble Lord Ancestor most probably was a poor but (one hopes) honest farmer but might even have been an inept pickpocket who jumped on a ship in Southampton to avoid an overly tight necktie. Not that we have found any such miscreants in our line . . . yet. Bill Pruett Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.