Some early USA Plants
(including the name spellings Plantt and
Plantz)
Plants in the USA have been associated with, for
example, the following whose descendants have been DNA tested..
- The Plant City, Florida Plants, as described in Issue No 1
of the Journal, are associated with the railway
pioneer Henry Bradley Plant who was a descendant of John Plant (c1646-1691)
who emigrated from England c1639 (or possibly 1632) with his wife Betty
Roundkettle. He settled in the east part of Branford, Connecticut [The Life
of Henry Bradley Plant, by George Hutchinson-Smith (G.Putnam & Sons, 1898)].
The adjacent photograph of a map of the Plant transport System has been
kindly supplied by John D Plant, a descendant of John Plant of Branford
[who is indicated as P7b in the DNA descent diagram here].
- A William Plant was in Virginia prior to 1677. His signature is said
to have been written Wm Plantt as though an
abbreviation of a longer name (e.g. Plantinet or perhaps even
Plantagenet). However, though DNA matches occur between the surname
spellings Plant and Plantt, no male-line Y-DNA match has been found between
any Plant(t) and any longer name (in particular, the Plants do no match with
the remains of the Plantagenet king Richard III or any other claimed
male-line descendant of the Plantagenets). It appears that shortly after
1829, members of this Virginia Plant family dropped the extra ' t '
though there are still some others in North America using the spelling
Plantt [this apparent Virginia branch is indicated by PT1a in the DNA
descent branching diagram here though
another DNA volunteer with the spelling Plantt belongs to a different branch
as indicated by PT3a in the same diagram].
In view of the occurrence of the spelling Plantt
in early USA records, it seem appropriate to summarise some backgound to
this spelling. Early parish records for Lincolnshire, England for example
include the spelling Plantt...
- 1565, 14 Oct, Thomas Plantt m Jone Pacoke at Wainfleet All Saints
- 1565, 29 Nov, Margaret Plantt, bap at Wainfleet All Saints
and, more generally, there are 16th and 17th century occurrences of the
spelling Plantt ..
- England: Oxfordshire (1540); Lincolnshire (1565, 1565,
1565); Worcestershire (1577, 1577); Cheshire (1581); Leicestershire (1586,
1637); London (1661); Staffordshire (1682)
- Germany: Rheinland, Preussen (1651, 1651, 1651,
1651, 1662, 1662, 1662, 1662, 1662, 1662)
Still earlier, in the Main Plant Homeland in England (north
Staffordshire and east Cheshire), the name's spelling in the Macclesfield
Court Rolls, available from 1360 onwards, changes haphazardly between
Plontt, Plonte and Plont [the substitution of ' o ' for ' a
' being normal in this North Western dialect region of Middle
English].
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