Daily AncestorPet.
Pet. is an old abbreviation of the first name Peter, found in deeds, wills, church registers and census pages.
Pet. is a clerk's shortening of the given name Peter. Busy writers cut common first names down to a few letters, often raising the last letters above the line, and the habit runs through deeds, wills, tax lists and census pages.
Pet. is also the usual short form for the epistles of Peter in the Bible, which turn up in church papers and gravestone verses. In a name column or a grantor line it is the man's name.
As seen in a recordName column of the 1850 census
Pet. Shultz, 50, Farmer, Germany
Sources
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Daily Ancestor. "Pet.." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/abbreviations/pet. Last checked 2026-10-01.