Where do our names come from? One way to learn about names is to look at maps of where the names are present today. Generally (not exclusively), Pitards appear in France, whereas Pittards appear in England. North American immigrant ancestors for Pitards and Pittards also migrated to the U.S. from France and England, respectively.
However, Pitard and Pittard would seem to be variants with a common origin. How so? The surname Pitard seems to be most common in the the north and west of France. This region of France was for many years in the middle ages contested territory, fought over by France and England. One might theorize from this that different branches diverged when "Pittards" migrated to England with the Normans. This doesn't mean that the family split in the year 1066—Normans went back and forth for centuries after that—but it does hypothesize an origin to the relationship.
There are early French Pitards who can be identified.
☞ To digress briefly, I must admit I'm VERY wary of any family histories that stretch back beyond about 1600. Some do appear on this website which come from well-documented sources, but I make no promises. The modern, skeptical notion of history, which I'm very fond of, was an unknown concept during and before the Renaissance, when the point of history was often to create what we would call a myth. You can see this idea in more recent family histories, even in "classless" America. Family history is a personal way to connect to and learn from history, and this requires some historical accuracy. One can, of course, trace families back that far, but not without some heavy documentary lifting.
With that caveat, the Pitard family on this site traces its origins, via New Orleans and the Caribbean, back to the towns of Chanteloup and Corps-Nuds in Ille-et-Vilaine, and before this to the towns of Teillé and Mouzeil, outside of Nantes in Loire-Atlantique. All of these fall within the area traditionally called Brittany (Bretagne). One of the earliest traceable Pitard ancestors, the happily named Bon Pitard, was the man to move from Teillé to Corps-Nuds.
There are earlier known Pitards. There was a Jean Pitard in the thirteenth century who was famous for being the first surgeon of St. Louis and the founder of the College of Surgery. I have seen no research on his family, however.
There are two coats of arms associated with the name. Both were created when the men were made esquires (écuyer), a noble rank a step below knighthood (and not necessarily connected to age). Both appointments, made in the same year during the reign of Louis XIV, are contemporary with the earliest known members of the family on this site, so they won't likely be closely related. In any event, these are descriptions of the two coats of arms, taken from Nobiliaire de Normandie, publié par une société de généalogistes (1862):
PITARD. — Écuyer, sieur de Bouguinière, Boulaye, de Serans, du Bois, etc., Élection d'Argentan, maintenu le 8 août 1666 : D'argent, au chevron de gueules, accompagné en chef de deux roses du même, et en pointe d'une hure de sanglier de sable. (These are the arms to the right.)
PITARD. — Écuyer, sieur de Saint-Jean, Élection de Domfront, maintenu le 24 juillet 1666 : D’azur, au faucon d’argent, empiétant une perdrix d’or. (This seems to be this family.)There have been different groups of Pitards who emigrated from France to North America. Louis François Pitard is the immigrant ancestor for the New Orleans family on this site. There are references on the 'net to Pitards in Canada, though I have not found any relation between Canadian families and the family that this site documents.
The Pittards are a Southern family whose history seems especially concentrated in Georgia. One family history site that cites sources on the subject is The Sarretts of Georgia. Also note the book The Pittard Family History by Anne Clark Bowden. Aside from these coincidental hits while surfing, though, I know nothing about them. Occasionally a Pittard who seems to have lost a "t" will appear in a Louisiana record.
Oh—and the name has nothing to do with being hoisted. A "petard" is a small bomb used to blow open a wall or a door. To be "hoist with one's own petard," as Hamlet describes (that's where the saying comes from), happens when the "engineer" destroys himself with the metaphorical backfire from his own plots:
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: an't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet. (3.4.205-210).Several crafts do meet in genealogical research, but I fervently hope that it will not be the means of my own destruction.