>In many respects, those of us who are Piatt/Pyeatt researchers owe a debt >of gratitude to Orra Eugene Monnette and his extensive research on the >early settlers of Piscataway, N.J.. In the 1930's, he published an >8-volume work entitled "First settlers of ye plantations of Piscataway and >Woodbridge, Olde East New Jersey 1664-1714." He was particularly >interested in the French settlers of the area because he descended from >them, as do we. Based upon his research and supported by what I have come across in the early New Jersey records, Rene Piatt went by several names, including Rene la Fleur and Rene Piatt and was frequently referred in the records as "Fleurry (renepiat)." In the records, it seems fairly evident that regardless of the many different names and the variant spellings, they were generally referring to a single individual. The only confusion may be that along with all of his other sons (John, Thomas, Jacob, etc.), Rene the patriarch (or original ancestor) also seems to have had a son named Rene. Since I have only been researching the New Jersey records for a short time, I'm not sure what work has already been done to distinguish between the two. It is also possible that there is only one person and that the "Fleurisson" refers to Rene himself and not to a son to whom he passed on his own given name. According to the French dictionary, "piat" means a young magpie. It is entirely possible, that young Rene was quite talkative and earned himself the nickname, "Rene the magpie." As I wrote previously, based upon his denization (i.e., naturalization) papers, which also referred to him as "Fleurry (renepiat)," I would assume that his actual surname was Fleurry and that Rene was his given name. But that is merely my assumption, at this point, more research would need to be required to verify what his name really was. Regardless, his children all seem to have adopted "Piatt" as their surname. That is the name which has been passed on through the generations to us. For the most part, the northern branches of the family use Piatt or Pyatt. The main southern branch of the family, who descend from Rene's son & grandson, both named Jacob, use the Pyeatt or Pyeatte spellings, although there seem to be a few who also use Pyatt. Post-Civil War Missouri seems to have acquired strains from both the northern and southern branches of the family and it is difficult to distinguish between the branches based upon how they chose to spell their name. Again, I may not be the best person to respond, primarily because I don't really know all that much about the northern branch of the family, although I feel fairly knowledgeable about the southern branch. I had no idea that there were researchers like Dick Piatt, who knows so much about the Piatt's in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and Laverne Piatt who has researched so many of the northern branches of the family. Hope this helps! Sharolynn Pyeatt 6730 HBLL Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602