One reference cited by A. E. Fant, states that the Fants were origionally from France, that the name was originally L'Efant, meaning male child. Some of these Fants were Huguenots. After the revocation of the Edic of Nantes in the 1680's, they fled to Wales, and some of them then migrated to America.

Some Fants settled in Galway, Ireland at the beginning of the 16th. century. These Fants were numerous and prominent and were one of the origional "Fourteen Tribes of Galway". (The term - Tribes of Galway was invented by the Cromwellian forces who regarded unfavorably the close bond of friendship and relationship between the chief families of the city. Tribes of Galway was adopted by them as a mark of distinction.

A family by the name of Fant settled at Kilmallock, county Limerick, Ireland about 1200 AD. Fantstown Castle was built about two miles east of Kilmallock about 1400 AD. The land on which the castle was located was owned by Robert Fant in 1234. Fant's lake, just outside Kilmallock, is mentioned under date of 1290 AD. The same land was owned by Richard and Patrick Fant in 1320 AD. In the Cromwell survey (about 1653) Fantstown contained 720 acres. Descendants of this family formed the "Whiteboys" to protest the enclosure of the common pasture lands by the Munster landlords. The "Whiteboys" wore white shirts for identification at night. Their mission, under the leadership of William Fant, was to destroy the illegally erected fences, soon turned to seeking redress of the many wrongs under which the people labored. Among these wrongs were tithes for the upkeep of clergy other than their own, rack rents, evictions, clearances, and the brutal arrogance of the aliens who lorded it over them.

The "Whiteboys" operated mostly at night. Their terrible vengeance was on landlords, bailiffs, tithe proctors, agents, land grabbers and informers. The law dealt mercilessly with the "Whiteboys" or anyone suspected of supporting them. The innocent as well as the guilty died on the scaffold in the years between 1760 and 1798. Many were hanged without the formality of a trial. [A.E. Fant, p.xv] The "Whiteboys" were forerunners of the IRA which eventually brought independence to Ireland.

It is not known where William Fant, founder of our Fant line in America was born, but he was in Stafford county, Virginia, before 1745. It is interesting that he bore the same name as the leader of the "Whiteboys" who descended from the Fourteen Tribes of Galway. The height of their persecution was between 1760 and 1798.

George Fant, the only known child of William Fant and Catherine Stewart, was married twice and had seventeen children. The children by his first marriage migrated to Kentucky when grown; the ones by his later marriage to Elizabeth Sewell went with him to South Carolina or were born there.