Recorded in several spelling forms including Paut, Paute, Pautard, Pautot, and Pauthier, this is a surname of French orgins. It derives from a pre 10th century Olde French word "paute", meaning muddy, and as such is a topographical surname for a person who lived at a muddy place, or from a village or hamlet of the same name. In English the equivalent surname is Mires or Myers, a very popular name particularly in the north of the country. Although when one considers that barely any agricultural land was adequately drained before the 15th century, the areas which generated "muddy" surnames in any spelling, must have been very muddy indeed! French church register recordings are at best erratic, and at the worst non-existent. The majority of church registers were destroyed at the time of the French Revolution, (1789 - 1794), when the Revolutionary Council banned the church throughout the country. The church was restored by Napoleon Bonaparte, but too late to save the recordings. However from those surviving we have extracted the following examples: Jean Pauthier, at Trouhans, Cote D'or, on March 1st 1731, and August Pautot at Ronchamp, Haute-Saone, on November 19th 1856. The first relevant recording is that of Jean Pautard, who married Perretto Cade, at Montpartier, France, on August 12th 1703. This was in the reign of King Louis X1V of France, known as "The Sun King", 1643 - 1715.