Thank you for that interesting email about the CATT family name.
Diane
----- Original Message -----
From: <FJZCLU(a)aol.com>
To: <CATT-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: [catt] New administrator
Hi! I'm in the U.S. and I'm a Catt from the Katz/Cats/Catt
line in the
U.S.
that came over in the early 1700s. My great-grandmother was Alwilda
"Wilda"
Catt (b. August 15, 1861 in Kosciusko County, Indiana; d. January
21,
1942
in Seattle, WA) who married Thomas Davidson, Jr. (April 19, 1892 in
Mondovi,
Buffalo County, Wisconsin). The Catt family was, even at the time
of her
birth, a very old family in the U.S., having come to Pennsylvania in the
early
1700s.
I suspect the CATTs in the UK aren't related at me at all, but it is
interesting that there are Catts both there and here, due to the spelling
changed.
How is the name "Catt" pronounced in England?
How "Catt" came from "Katz". Many German-speaking people came to
Philadelphia, among them my direct ancestor. Members of the Katz family
had
Germanic
names on the church records in the 1700s - Johannes Katz, for
instance.
The
Katz became "Cats" or "Catt" because their names
were Anglicized when
written
on the militia rolls or pay records. One of my direct ancestors
was in
the
militia during the American Revolution on what was then the western
western
frontier of Virginia/Pennsylvania (then-disputed territory between
what
later became two states). One ancestor was even taken prisoner and held
in
"Upper Canada" -- and released at "Fort Pitt"
(now Pittsburg). These
German-speaking people are sometimes referred to as "Pennsylvania Dutch"
(because they
settled in Pennsylvania and spoke "Deutsch"). As
infants, their names
in
church records are German names in the mid-1700s, but by the time
they
are youths
or young adults, the English names are used, and the next generation
uses
only the "American" names - for instance, Johannes Katz becomes John Cats
and/or Catt on various militia rolls -- and after the Revolution, by the
early
1800s marriage and land records soon become "Catt" in all
instances, and
"John"
rather than "Johannes", etc.
Some people in America didn't like being "Catts" and changed their name
to,
among others, Cott or Cate. In the 1880s in Wisconsin, my
great-great-grandfather Josiah Franklin Catt (known as "Frank Catt") had a
brother named George
Catt -- and he went to court and changed his name, and that of his
wife
and
adult children -- shortly before the marriage of his son -- so the
descendants of that Catt line are all named "Sayner" or "Saynor".
That
surname is also
Pennsylvania Dutch, and in my research, Catts and Sayners travelled
west
through Pennsylvania to new homes in Ohio, later Indiana, and by or soon
after
the Civil War, north to Wisconsin or west to Illinois.
Perhaps the pronunciation may have been more like "Cotts" than
"Cats"? I
don't know -- but some of the people on the list may know.
I've been a Catt researcher for decades and (eventually) will publish a
book
and/or a website about "my Catts". It's a wonderfully
interesting
family,
typical for American pioneers, with generations moving
"west" to new
frontiers
frequently.
Best wishes to you as the new webmaster!
Freda J Zimmerman Griffin
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