For more than thirty years researchers tracing the history of the Chant surname through conventional means, have tried to establish whether there is an ancestral connection before the 19th century, between the various Chant families originating in villages mainly in the English counties of Somerset and Dorset. 

The name is known in those counties in the 16th century but also in Lincolnshire and Norfolk - so is there a connection?

Early spelling variations include Channt, Channte, Chant, Chaunt and Chaunte.