2. European Heritage
Based on DNA testing, the Bryants of Rock Creek Island belong to haplogroup I2a2a or M-223. For details about DNA, click here. This situates our ancestors on the European continent for tens of thousands of years. Over many generations, the y-DNA remained more or less consistent, handed down from father to son with very occasional mutations. Our ancestors formed villages and developed language skills. As the need to distinguish one person from another emerged, John became John Butcher (profession) or John de Villnes (village). Surnames emerged in the 12th century, first with nobility.
Variations of the Bryant surname include Bryan, Brian, Brien, O’Brien, Brient, Briand, and Briant. One website postulates the name is of Old Breton-Irish origin based on "bre," meaning hill or "brigh" meaning strong. Breton bearers of the name may have been among the Normans who invaded England in 1066 and then went onto Ireland where they encountered an Irish version based Brian Boru who was high king of Ireland in 1002. (The Vikings may have borrowed the Irish name and independently introduced it to northwest England before the Norman Conquest.)
If we were to cross hatch a map, showing the intersection between the largest populations of the I2a2a DNA and those geographic regions with a significant population of Bryants, we end up with Scotland, Ireland, England (except Wales and Cornwall), and several provinces in northwestern France. This coincides remarkably well with family stories.
Mary White Pearson wrote a 1876 letter stating that her grandmother, Celia Bryant White (sister of John Bryant Sr.) came to the Virginia on a ship when she was about 10 years old. Sarah Bryant Luttrell [1] (1792-1894) was reportedly quite proud of her English antecedents. Her first cousin once removed, Anthony Murray Bryant (1818-1889), also believed that the family was from England. A biographical sketch about Sarah's nephew, Laban Bryant (1821-1893), embellished this story:[2]
John Bryant immigrated to America when a young man, in the company of three countrymen, Henry,
Philip and William Winfrey, settled in Virginia, and lived there til the breaking out of the Revolutionary
when he entered the service of the colonies and served through the seven years' war, being most of the
time in the immediate company of General Washington.
The above story is incorrect, because John Bryant Jr. stated in his Rev War pension application that he was born 1754 in Albemarle Co, VA. Whoever wrote the sketch about Laban may have gotten the generalities right, if not the details (which generation came to VA).
Sons of Jesse Puryear Bryant[3] had a different take on their ancestry. Sam Anthony Bryant said the family had French antecedents, arguing that our name was originally “Briand.” Two of his brothers claimed that the family was of Irish or Scotch-Irish descent. Edward Wester Creal echoed this sentiment in a short article, “History of the Bryant Family,” written in 1943.[4] Curiously, he wrote, “The Youngs were Scotch-Irish and the Bryants were ‘Scotch and Irish.’”[5]
Most of the above could be combined into a unified theory, when we consider that the coastal regions of southern Scotland, far northern England and northeast Ireland had melded into a single cultural region by the 17th century, due to the safety and ease of travel by sea. Conservative estimates indicate the Irish Sea region contributed more than a quarter million immigrants who arrived in America between 1717-1775. About two-thirds of them came between 1765-1775. Our earliest Bryant ancestor was here before 1754.
Immigrants came from all classes--landed gentry, yeomen, farmers and laborers, craftsmen, and traders. Sharing a desire for material improvement in the new world, they traveled in family groups and settled the backcountry of America. Later, their descendants proved to be vague about their antecedents, usually pointing toward Virginia or North Carolina; when pressed, they sometimes described their antecedents as English, Scots, Irish, or Scots-Irish. This is not surprising, since the idea of nation states with fixed boundaries didn't begin to take hold until the early 1800s.
So far, we have investigated our European heritage from the standpoint of DNA, surname, and family stories. The next chapter looks at cultural factors before coming to a tentative conclusion.
[1] John Bryant Sr.>John Jr.>Sarah Bryant m. Shelton Luttrell
[2] Quote from Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas. Chicago: F.A. Battey and Company, 1889. The validity of this statement (probably written by a descendant of Laban’s) is questionable. It appears to refer to John Jr., a known Revolutionary War soldier. He was born in 1754 in Albemarle Co, Va, not an immigrant. It's possible that descendants erroneously shuffled together John Sr., a possible immigrant, and John Jr., American born. However, matters get more complex with the introduction of the Winfreys. Two Winfrey males (Israel and John, father and son) had sons named “Henry,” “Phillip,” and “William.” Israel’s sons were contemporaries of John Bryant, Sr. The deceased researcher, Robley Winfrey, was certain that the Winfreys immigrated from England, probably from Lincolnshire, but found no proof of this. This is unsurprising as few ship manifests from that era have survived. As with most family "stories," take it with a large grain of salt. The gist is likely to be true, meaning that a John Bryant probably did sail to the colonies from England and probably aboard a ship with one or more Winfreys. But don't believe the details. Part 2 of the story addresses John Jr.'s Revolutionary War service, suggesting that he served for 7 years. His pension application referenced only 6 months of service.
[3] John Bryant Sr.>Anthony Bryant>David P. Bryant>Jesse P. Bryant. He was the younger brother of Anthony Murray Bryant.
[4] Edward Wester Creal was the son of Jane Bryant Creal, daughter of Jesse Puryear Bryant and Mariah Young Bryant. His history was published in the Larue Co. Historical Society Quarterly on April 1, 1976. Edward Wester Creal, was a US Rep from Ky from 1935-1943: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000898
[5] A Young married a descendant of Anthony Bryant.