A to Z Challenge On the Move: E is for England

England is where Samuel Packard lived in 1638, the year he took his wife and infant daughter on a crowded, dangerous voyage to the New World, to the Plymouth Colony.

Samuel hailed from the village of Stonham Aspal, in Suffolk.  The house where he was born still stands, though it was recently on the market and I fear for its survival.  Such an innate fear comes from living in Florida, where a great deal has been destroyed in the name of development.  The church where Samuel was baptized also is still standing.

Samuel's family adhered to the Church of England, but Samuel himself became a Separatist.  This led him to migrate to the New World.

I have chronicled the Packard migrations from Samuel down to my own father in other posts in this series.  I won't rehash them here.

I do not know how long the Packard family was in Suffolk, but they were there at least from the time of the Domesday Book enumerations.  At that time, there were a lot of men named John all around England.  I don't think there were that many Johanns, but the Packard listed in the Domesday Book was Johann Packard, living in Stonham Aspal.

This raises the possibility that Packard was originally not an English name, but a German one.  England and Germany are closely united in many ways, from the German origins of the English Royal Family to the language.  For all its thievery from languages such as Greek, Latin, Spanish, French and many others, English is at its very root a Germanic language.

Another hint to the possibility of the name Packard being German is a tidbit I found on my way to looking up other things.  Most Packards in the United States descend from Samuel, the original 1638 emigrant.  But not all.  Looking in Immigration and Naturalization records, I came across a fellow named Packard whose birthplace had been Germany.  He entered the U.S. from Mexico in the early 20th century, along with his Mexican wife and their child, who had also been born in Mexico.  Apparently, Herr Packard had been in Mexico for some time. 

So it is interesting to delve not only into the migrations of people, but also the migrations of the names we bear.