World

This page will host information regarding the name "Petts" around the world.

The original know location of the name PETTS can be attributed to the flat areas of East Kent in England dating to the early 4th Century AD. presumable these were part of the group allowed to settle ad were allocated an area of East Kent by the then population of Celtic people, who had been left to fend for themselves after the withdrawal of the Roman army and administrators, the land gift was said to be in payment for acting as mercenaries to protect the area from the ravages of the Picts from Scotland and the Scotii from Ireland. These mercenaries were know as the Jutes, in fact they consisted of various tribes around North Germany and the Netherlands, of whom the Friesians provided the ships and sailing skills for which they were justly renown. It was from Frisia that the name PETTS originated, meaning low flat area of dwellings. Many place names in Frisia, now part of the northern Netherlands which have the name Pett or similar. The Friesians migrated en-masse across the North Sea as the area that was their homeland slowly drowned with rising sea level and the added pressure from migrations from the Eastern tribes. As the sea rose the Frisians built their dwellings on stilts with accompanying dykes (a Dutch common structure), but there is so far in height that is possible a dwelling on stilts.

It is more than likely that all PETTSES around the world are descendants of these early Frisians.

The current worldwide population of Pettses call all be traced to this early group of East Kent settlers of the early 4th century. Their first expansion was not until the 15th century and only into Surrey, the next county westwards, as we come closer to the present day the outward migration grew more rapidly, peaking in Victorian times due to the spread of trade by Britain around the world, with the Petts being able to use their ancestral shipbuilding skills.

Today there are large pockets of Peitses around Pittsberg, Pennsylvania, in Sydney Australia, in Canada and in smaller numbers in New Zealand and Bolivia.