Your Genealogist still Needs your Help!

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the birth registration indexes for England and Wales dating from the middle of 1837. We are very fortunate in this country to have those readily accessible and free to search online on the General Register Office’s website. Many other countries do not make their indexes to births accessible for open use and searching. Indeed in New South Wales, Australia, where the majority of other Swinfields have been born in the last two centuries, they are only available to 1925, being subject to a 100-year confidentiality rule.

As I tried to explain, without information from family members, it had proved impossible to attribute over 120 of the Swinfield children, who have been born in England and Wales from 1980 to 2024, to any of the four pedigrees which include those Swinfields who have lived throughout the past five centuries. Almost 600 people using our surname are still alive today, of which 440 live in England and Wales and perhaps 160 in Australia. Many of those follow and read this Blog.

I asked for the help of those readers, who knew about their extended family and are in touch with their uncles and aunts, cousins, and nephews and nieces, to try to resolve my problem. Disappointingly, to date, I have received a very limited response to my plea for your input and assistance. I am still left with 43 men and women, whose births were registered from 1925 to 2006, who I cannot add to one of those four family trees. They are:     

Year born            Forenames                                        Registration District
1926                     Stephen J                                          Croydon
1940                     Eileen J                                             Surrey NE
1946                     Eileen J                                             Surrey NE
1960                     Diane                                                 Iserlohn, Germany          
1979                     Michael Anthony                              Leicester
1982                     Robert Anthony                                Derby
1983                     Sy David                                           Leicester                            
1985                     Anthony Steven                                Leicester             
1986                     Dean Michael                                   Leicester
1986                     Ian Craig                                           Leicester
1987                     Robert Adam                                    Salford
1987                     James Ashley                                    Leicester             
1988                     Laura Jayne                                      Southampton
1988                     Stacey Leigh-Anne                           Derby
1990                     Danielle Marie                                  Leicester
1990                     Megan Elizabeth                               Leicester
1991                     Carla Michelle                                   Leicester
1992                     Daniel Roy T                                     Leicester                            
1993                     Reuben August L                               Mid Devon
1993                     Callum                                               Southampton
1993                     Daniel Craig                                      Derby
1993                     Katie Louise                                      Leicester
1994                     Jonathan George                                Leicester
1995                     Kayleigh Anne                                   Southampton
1995                     Dale Rhys                                          East Staffs
1996                     Megan Jane                                        Leicester
1996                     Todd                                                   Leicester
1997                     Reece Andrew                                   East Staffs          
1997                     William Joseph                                  Leicester
1998                     James                                                 Salford
1998                     Liam Daniel                                       Manchester

1998                     William Thomas                                Leicester         
1999                     Shannon James                                  East Staffs
2001                     Caitlin Carole                                    Southampton                                                  
2001                     Leo James                                          Leicester
2001                     Laura Margaret                                  Nuneaton                                         
2003                     Molly Sherie R                                  Southampton
2003                     Joshua Robert G                                Nuneaton
2004                     Dale John                                           Leicester
2004                     Katie Jane                                          Leicester
2004                     Rebecca Jade                                     Leicester
2004                     Renee Leyla                                       Hillingdon                          
2005                     Emily Paige                                       Swansea                            
2006                     Adam Richard                                   Warrington

If any reader of this post is willing to provide me with information about the parentage of any of these adults, I can put them in the correct place on my family trees. You may be one of those listed or can put them in touch with me. If so, please communicate with me in confidence via email at geoffswinfield@gmail.com. Do not put any personal information on line.

I would be most grateful for your help and input. Happy Christmas to all Swinfields!

I Need Your Help!

I have recently been looking at the birth entries that I can locate for children in the national indexes for England and Wales since the system began in July 1837. Currently, indexes are available up to the end of June 2024. They record the forenames of the child, the mother’s former surname and the district of birth.

In that time period of 187 years, I have listed exactly 1,000 children who have been given the surname of Swinfield (including Swinfield-Wells). I took the opportunity to see if the rate of those given our very unusual and rare surname had increased. In nearly two centuries, the population size has increased enormously from 16 million in 1841, when the first full census by name was taken, to over 32 million by 1901, and just under 60 million when the last census was compiled in 2021.

In the 20 year period from 1837 to 1856, 81 Swinfield births were recorded in England (none in Wales), about 4 children per year being given our surname. That rate of about 4 to 6 births per year continued from 1857 to 1976 (varying from just under 4 in the years from 1857-1876 to nearly 6 per year in 1917-1936). From 1977 to the middle of 2024, about 6.25 children per year have been named Swinfield. As a percentage of the national population, our surname is not flourishing!    

Up to 1979, I can identify the parentage of virtually all of the 710 Swinfield children registered and can therefore include them on one of the 4 large family trees which I have constructed for most Swinfields. However since 1980, of the 290 further births recorded, only 168 can be identified and added to one of the four trees.

Swinfield births registered from 2003 to 2005 from indexes on Ancestry.co.uk

What of the other 122 children called Swinfield registered from 1980 to mid-2024? Of those, 62 had mothers whose maiden surname was also recorded as Swinfield. They were probably born to single women and no father’s name was inserted on the birth certificate. The other 60 had a mother whose maiden or former name was different to Swinfield but for whom I cannot locate a recorded marriage to a man with the surname of Swinfield. That probably suggests that their parents were couples in a longer term relationship but have chosen not to formally marry.

Birth entry in index for 2005

In all 122 cases, I am therefore unable to add those children to a pedigree/family tree and link them to their parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins etc. It would be lovely to address this problem and place these Swinfields on the correct tree. For that to happen, I will need YOUR help and that of the wider Swinfield community.

Could you tell me about children in YOUR part of the family who were born from 1980 to as late as this year of 2024? Some of these people in your extended family would now be in their early 40s. I would need from you the child’s forenames and date (or year) of birth, their father’s name (if known) and the mother’s forename(s) and her maiden and/or former surname. If you know where the child was born that would provide excellent additional information to add. Please send me a list of as many of those that you know about. Christmas would be a great time to find and record this information. 

I would also be delighted to receive the equivalent information for those who are part of the Swinfield family of New South Wales, Australia. There, there are no publically-available birth indexes for that state for the past 100 years!    

I would be so grateful to receive whatever you can tell me about YOUR SWINFIELD family. Thank you and Happy Christmas.  

E-mail me at geoffswinfield@gmail.com . 

Dorothy Margaret Bannister nee Swinfield (1929-2024)

Dorothy and daughter Tracey Jones

Dorothy Margaret Swinfield was born on the 29^th of December 1929 in Barton under Needwood in Staffordshire. She was the fifth of the seven children born to William Swinfield, a platelayer who worked for the Midland Railway Company, and his wife Ada. She had five brothers, William Arthur, Albert Edward, Frederick Charles, Thomas John and Geoffrey, and one older sister Joan. Amazingly, when her father married Ada Louisa Toon on 23^rd December 1922 in Barton parish church, when he lived in Barr Lane, he was a 50 year-old widower. He had previously been married to Charlotte Allsebrooke (1872-1920) in Burton-on-Trent Register Office in 1894. That first union had produced ten children born from 1896 to 1910, of whom seven survived to adulthood. Ada Louise Swinfield died on 17^th November 1974, aged 80, and is buried in Barton churchyard.

Grave of Ada Louise Swinfield
(1895-1974) in Barton under
Needwood churchyard

William Swinfield had passed away nearly thirty years earlier in 1945 at the age of 74. He had been born on 13th August 1870 at Alrewas as the son of Joseph Swinfield (1843-1905), a farm labourer, and Hannah whose maiden surname had been Riley. His family of five children lived at Alrewas before moving to Barton under Needwood between 1875 and 1881. Joseph was a native of Earl Shilton in Leicestershire being born there in 1843. He was the son of Thomas Brown and Sarah Hewitt, the mother being the estranged wife of Thomas Swinfield, who emigrated to America.    

Grave of (Albert) Edward Swinfield 
(1925-1948) at Barton under Needwood 

Dorothy’s older brother Albert joined the Navy at the age of 14. He arrived home in time for her birthday along with her first ever birthday cake. He was taken prisoner of war at the age of 17. Dot was very proud of him and often spoke of how brave he had been. Sadly, he never recovered from his time in Makassar Camp on the island of Java and died in 1948 at the age of only 23.

Dot, as she was known throughout her long life, began working at the age of 14 as a chamber maid at The Silverhill in Birmingham. She then worked at The Yenton Hotel, Midland Journey, Sharps and Knights and at the Oakmore Café.  She was a cleaner for John Taylor High School and worked for 15 years at Rangemore School for the Deaf.                                                 

It was while working at Sharps and Knights that Dot met and fell in love with Tom Bannister, who was to become her second husband in 1958. They moved to Belvedere Road in Burton-on- Trent.  Following the births of their son Paul in 1965 and daughter Tracey in 1968, the family moved back to Barton. Over the years, the family grew with the arrival of grandchildren Emma Louise, Alfie and Tasha. Dot loved and doted on her grandchildren.

Dot retired at 65 but never really stopped working. She played bowls and catered at the club, eventually being made an Honorary Member. She loved other games, playing crib, whist, dominoes and bingo, and enjoyed reading. Her world was shattered when Tom died on 7^th of June in 2003.

She continued to enjoy a very active life. Tracey had moved to New Zealand and Dot visited her and the Jones family there on several trips. Dot had a stroke on the 9^th of March 2023 and spent the remainder of her life in the Jayson Hylton Nursing Home where she died on 9^th March 2024, aged 94. The funeral service took place in her home parish church of Barton under Needwood on 3^rd April. 

Sandra Bates (1950-2024)

 I am very sorry to announce the death of Sandra Bates, a very keen member of the Swinfield Genealogy & DNA Group. She passed away on 3^rd March 2024 following a short stay in hospital after dealing with a long-term condition. 

Allan & Sandra at Ashby de la Zouch in 2010  

Sandra was born in 1950 in the Hammersmith area of London as the older of the two children of Roger and Bettyne Bates. She leaves a brother Paul and a partner Allan. 

Her mother (1921-2002) was the daughter of Albert Arthur Summers (1898-1976) and Frances Minnie (1897-1984) whose maiden surname was Swinfield. Surprisingly, on her birth certificate, Frances’s mother was recorded as Ellen Paddison, a domestic servant who lived and worked at Willington in Derbyshire. By the date of the 1901 census, her 4 year-old child was living at Derby Road in Willington recorded as the daughter of Alfred Swinfield (1868-1919), a general labourer, and his wife Theresa or Thirza. That couple had married in 1893 in the parish church and, after they had lost their only child Daisy as a baby, they appear to have “adopted” the young Frances. As such, she and her descendants including Sandra and Paul have become part of Swinfield Family 5 & 2.

 

Alfred Swinfield was the son of Joseph Swinfield (1843-1905) and his wife Hannah Riley, who had married at Alrewas in Staffordshire in 1865. He was yet another grandchild of Thomas Brown, a life-long bachelor, by Sarah Swinfield nee Hewitt, the estranged wife of Thomas Swinfield (1808-1893) who left his “family” behind to emigrate to America in 1854. So Sandra was, on paper, my 3^rd cousin once removed. A very complicated and certainly not genetic relationship!  

 

Sandra was educated at Keynsham near Bristol, later studying microbiology at Cardiff University and graduating with an M.Sc. in Brewing Technology from Birmingham University. She certainly put her education towards what was clearly to become a vocation in the brewing industry. Working for Courage and later Harp Lager, she took on the Eight Bells pub at Alton, Hampshire, and then worked for Ushers at Trowbridge in Wiltshire. Eventually she joined Wadworth’s in Devizes, where she became part of the team that brews her own favourite beer, the famous 6X. Those who enjoy real ale should be very grateful to her.  

 

Ashby de la Zouch - 11 September 2010 

I first corresponded by email with Sandra back in late in 2008 when she lived at Melksham in Wiltshire and introduced herself as the granddaughter of Frances Swinfield. We have been in regular contact ever since discussing the family’s history and collaborating on research. When she decided to hold a Bates, Rowland and Eyre family history “get-together” for her close relatives at Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire on 11^th September 2010, Di and I were invited to be there to represent the Swinfields.

 

First Swinfield Gathering - September 2013

That meeting of her part of the family lead to the first Swinfield Gathering at the Sir John Moore Foundation, Appleby Magna, another Swinfield ancestral parish in Leicestershire, on 22^nd September 2013. Sandra found the venue and organised the day whilst her partner, Allan Francis, was appointed the photographer.  

 

Second Swinfield Gathering - September 2015 

Two years later, the event was expanded and the second Swinfield Gathering took place at the George Ward Centre in her new home village of Barwell, Leicestershire, on 12^th September 2015. Once again, Sandra booked the venue and played a major part in organising the event. She even scheduled her daily dog-walking routes to pass as many Swinfield homes as possible to distribute leaflets, publicising the day and encouraging attendees to be there!

 

Later in her genealogical research, Sandra became involved in DNA testing to try to answer long standing questions and relationships in her family history. She ran a local U3A group near her home in Barwell and was a member of the Leicestershire & Rutland Family History Society.

 

I will be very forever grateful to Sandra for all her input, help and support and the effort that added so much to making the gatherings such a success and bringing us Swinfield cousins together. Only in January this year, we talked about holding yet another English Gathering later in 2024. Sadly now Sandra will not be there to see it.   

Happy 2024 to all Swinfields

 A very Happy New Year for 2024 to all Swinfields wherever you may be! 

As we end 2023, we think back on what has happened in this past year. Of course, we had to say goodbye to members of our families. I am aware of three Swinfields who all passed away in September. One was Jeanette (nee Morgan) born in 1937, the widow of Derek Swinfield (1935-2021) of Family 3. The other two were William “Bill” Swinfield, born 1946, and Reginald “Reg” Swinfield, my own father, born in early 1925, both of Family 5. 

I wrote about my Dad’s life and career in a Blog of January 2015. Since 2008 he has lived in a care home and has three great-grandchildren, Lexia, Reggie and Vinnie. When he died, he was the oldest Swinfield in the World, then being 98. That mantle, as far as I’m aware, has now passed to Arthur Henry Swinfield of Family 3, who was born in July 1928. If anyone can advise me otherwise, I would love to know. If you would like to add a Blog of the life of any of your recent ancestors, please send me the basic information and I will put in together for you.

Of course, these losses will have been replaced by new members of our family through the babies born during 2023. If there have been any that you know of, again I am always delighted to hear about them. Again, tell me please.

During the second half of this year, I have been revisiting the four main Swinfield pedigrees that I have compiled over the past five decades since I started researching the family’s history in 1972. I have been adding the information about our ancestors and relatives that can be found in the decennial census returns of England and Wales for 1841 to 1921 and in the 1939 Register. This includes addresses where they lived, occupations, relationships, ages, and places of birth. 

1911 census of 40 Parry Street, Leicester, for John Anthony Swinfield (1878-1964) and his family

For 1921, it even tells us who they worked for: 

1921 census of 40 Parry Street, Leicester, for John Anthony Swinfield (1878-1964) and his family

1939 Register for 8 Uppingham Road, Leicester, for John Anthony Swinfield (1878-1964)
and his wife Amelia (Penn) (1878-1953)

Unfortunately, the equivalent censuses for Australia do not exist.

This information for your part of the family can now be seen on the Swinfield family trees on the Ancestry website through these links:

Swinfield Family 1 & 4A   

Swinfield Family 5 & 2

Swinfield Family 3 & 4      

Swinfield Family 12

Once you are on the relevant family tree, "Tree search" for or "find" the deceased person whose information you seek.

Also, there have been suggestions that it’s time for another Swinfield Gathering to take place in England this year. The last one was held at Barwell, Leicestershire, in September 2015. Is it now time to meet again, nine years later? What do you think? Would you like to come along? Let me know your thoughts.    

E-mail: geoffswinfield@gmail.com    

Swinfield Family 3A has a new source of genealogical information

Having conducted research in the history of the Swinfield family for 50 years, since I began my study in 1972, I thought that I knew of all the main sources of information which are available for its investigation. You never should say that there is nothing else to look at! 

Recently, I became aware, during recent online correspondence with Linda Swinfield of New South Wales, of a privately-printed work which includes a very significant account of the genealogy of the branch of the family which I call Swinfield Family 3A. The book is entitled Caroline Eleanor Burrows/Ferrier nee Meredith 1813-1893 Burrows Descendents and was compiled and produced by Val Ferrier of Waratah in 2000. Why did this contain such a wealth of information about those called Swinfield, especially the branch that has lived in New South Wales from the mid 19th to the end of the 20th century?

Val's quest was to identify the descendants of Caroline Meredith, who was born on 17^th November 1813 in Sydney, NSW, as the daughter of Frederick Meredith and his wife, Sarah Mason, who he married in 1811. Frederick was on the First Fleet as a steward on the “Scarborough” arriving in Sydney on 26th January 1788. He eventually became the first Chief Constable of the Sydney Police and died there in 1836. There is a Facebook Group where his descendants engage in discussion of his family's history. In an attempt to locate branches of Caroline’s descent, from the 16 children that she had by her two husbands, John Burrows (1794-1859) and Frederick Robert Ferrier (1813-1882), she sent out many “information sheets” on which living relatives could provide their genealogical information. She then compiled a spiral bound book of 236 pages of text, photographs and pedigrees just for the Burrows descendants.

The fifth section of this epic work, pages 177-235, recounts the descendants of the seventh of the eight children who Eleanor had by John Burrows. That was Ellen Sophia (1840-1890) who was to marry John Swinfield (1838-1903) on 25^th June 1858 at St Andrews Scots Church, Sydney. 

1858 marriage of John Swinfield & Ellen Sophia Burrows

John had arrived on 30^th December 1848 aboard the “Walmer Castle” as the 10 year-old son of William Swinfield (1804-1876) and his step-mother Sarah (Williamson) (1816-1861). 

John Swinfield arriving in 1848 with his family
(NSW State Archives: NRS5316/4_4786)

John had been born at Hartshill in Warwickshire, England, on 22^nd July 1838. His mother Sarah (Ballard) had died in 1845. John and Ellen Sophia Swinfield had ten children of their own, born from 1858 to 1879 in Sydney.

Three of their issue died as infants and although two of their other children grew up and married, they had no issue who survived infancy. Of the five children, whose living descendants are documented in Val’s book, four were sons. Those were Henry Swinfield (1858-1923), Albert William (1866-1934), Arthur Thomas (1868-1917) and James Ernest (1871-1923). All have living Swinfield lines of descent.

NSW has no publically-available census for the 20^th century as I referred to in my blog about the 1921 census of England and Wales.  This lack of data can be supplemented by some information found in the Ryerson Index of newspaper obituaries and death announcements. If the family can be contacted, and I am in contact with representatives of many NSW families, they can, of course, help with vital information about the more recent generations.

The most important new information concerns the descendants who were born after 1921. 1921 is the latest year which can currently be searched through the online state birth index for NSW. The limitation is due to a 100 year confidentiality regulation. In the absence of the birth index information from 1922 to the present, clues from the marriage index, which are now available to as late as 1971, and the death index which can be searched to 1991, it is almost impossible to build trees to the present-day

Now that we have access to the wealth of information gleaned and compiled by Val Ferrier to as late as 2000, this reveals other Swinfield lines of descents through those people who were born in the last eight decades of the 20^th century where an “information sheet” was completed and returned. All the new names, dates and places have now been added to my databases and the pedigree for Swinfield Family 3A. Thank you Linda and Val!

Ray Swinfield (1939-2019)

On the morning of Friday, 17^th June 2022, an auction will take place at Gardiner Houlgate at Corsham in Wiltshire of the musical instruments of the pre-eminent jazz flute player, Ray Swinfield (1939-2019). 38 lots, numbered 1611-1648 in the sale catalogue, are his collection being sold by his widow Lindy.

I was contacted by Lindy Burrows Swinfield in August 2021 to share family history information about her late husband. Ray had died in October 2019 in London where he had lived since he first visited in 1964. Lindy had written an obituary of husband which was published in London Jazz News on 15^th June 2022. As can be seen, he played with all the greats of jazz music. He also worked on many film soundtracks, commercials, TV and West End shows and pop music recordings. Two of his most popular claims to fame are that he played on the 1967 Beatles song Penny Lane as well as on the much-repeated childrens’ TV programme Mr Benn, originally of 1971-1972.  

Ray was born on 14^th December 1939 in Sydney, NSW, Australia as the only child of Raymond Walter Swinfield (1912-1984) and Gertrude Brigid (Murphy) (1907-1995). His grandparents married at Balmain and later lived in the Leichardt area of Sydney where they had their five children. As such, Ray junior was the great-great-great-grandson of William Swinfield (1804-1876), who arrived in Sydney on 30^th December 1848. As such, he was the progenitor of the NSW line of Swinfields who still live there today. He had arrived from Warwickshire with his family aboard the “Walmer Castle”.

On looking back through my much earlier correspondence with other Swinfields in the 1970s and 1980s, I found that I had first heard from Ray back in 1973/4 in response to a circular that I had sent to all Swinfields listed in the English telephone directories. He then lived in Kingston upon Thames and was able to provide a brief outline of his pedigree which he had gleaned from his father who still lived in Australia. Later Ray wrote again in January 1988. As Lindy had told me, Ray was very interested in his family’s history! Ray was able to provide me with a fairly detailed outline of his family’s story which had been sent to Ray’s widowed mother “Dot” or “Dollie” and Raymond junior in late 1987 by his uncle Arthur Norman Swinfield (1905-2000). Ray’s mother had moved to live with her son in Kingston after the death of her husband in Sydney in 1984. Both his father and uncle have commemorative plaques in Australian cemeteries.

Besides Lindy Jennifer Burrows, whom Ray married in 1996 in his native Australia, he had previously been married in 1970 in the Merton Registration District of south London to a widow whose maiden name was Rosemarie Hood. Through her he gained a step-daughter, Caroline Angela Louise McDonald-Peattie, who had been born in 1964.

Ray Swinfield died on 4^th October 2019 after a long battle over two decades against the debilitating diseases of Parkinson’s and later Dementia. He had played his last musical note in public, ironically, on the Parkinson TV show in 2007.