Part 10: Cousins in America!

Elizabeth Swinfield Cooper, born at 10.15 am on Tuesday, 28^th February 1839, at Calverton, as the illegitimate daughter of Thomas Swinfield and Maria Cooper, was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, at the time of the 1860 census. She was the newly-married wife of John Warburton, a painter. What happened to her and do we have American cousins?

Marriage of 1859 

The card index of registration records for New Hampshire is searchable through the FamilySearch website of the Mormon Church. Elizabeth Swinfield had married John on 27^th August 1859 in the Middle Street Baptist Church, Court Street, when she was 20. It is believed, from all the records found for her, many unearthed by genealogist, Sandi Hewlett of Philadelphia, that she produced at least four children. They were Frances, born in 1862 at Portsmouth; William John born 6^th December 1864 somewhere in the state of Massachussetts; Annie who was born and died in 1865/6 at Philadelphia and Edward or Edwin on 28^th October 1866 in Boston.   




By 1870, when the census was taken, this couple and their three young children were back in Philadelphia. John was working as a French polisher. 

1880 census of Portsmouth, NH

1886 Portsmouth City Directory 

In 1880, Elizabeth was a young widow of just 40, living with Fannie, William and Edward at 9 Bartlett Street, back in Portsmouth. The 1886 Portsmouth city directory places them in residence at Islington Road/Street, the house which Thomas Swinfield left in his will, dated 1891, to his daughter and his grandson, William. Interestingly, although Frances Swinfield Jameson did not die until 1923 and the other son, Edwin/Edward, lived until 1927, neither was mentioned by their grandfather.

Elizabeth remained a widow throughout the remainder of her long life, living at Milburn Street in 1900 and Islington Street in 1910 and 1920. She was at 1207 and her son at 1191 and were these the two halves of the same building as bequeathed by Thomas? Elizabeth finally died at the age of 86 on 23^rd January 1925 of a brain haemorrhage. Her obituary was published in the Portsmouth Herald on that same day. She too was laid to rest in Proprietor’s Cemetery, possibly with her father.

1910 census of Islington Street, Portsmouth, for the Warburton and Davis families

Obituary of Elizabeth Swinfield Warburton,
died 23 January 1925, in The Portsmouth Herald

Frances Jameson had a daughter, Josephine, who married Charles Edwin Davis. They lived with the Warburtons in 1910. After the death of her husband, she moved to California where both she and her own daughter died. It is not yet known if there are any living descendants of hers. 

William John Warburton (1864-1930), the executor of Thomas’s will of 1894, had three sons. Only one, John Edwin (1891-1964) had issue. Just this week, we have, through the social network which is Facebook, made contact with his granddaughter in South Carolina. 


My sons have an American 4^th  cousin!