How can you learn about the Swinfields?

Happy Christmas to all those who follow the Swinfield Blog.

When you are together over the festive season, let us find some time to talk to other family members about our relatives and the ancestors from who we are descended. Now is a good time to collect those family stories. Let us remember where we came from and record all the family memories and tales before it is too late. Dig out all the old family photos and record the names, dates and places of the images from our past. Then make a New Year's resolution to share them with all of us who are part of the wider Swinfield clan. I would love to hear from you and to have new material and images to write about in 2012. Tell me what you have discovered so that we can pass the information to all who are interested. This Blog is a great medium for telling stories and illustrating them with documents and photographs.

If you have not done so, join the Swinfield Genealogy & DNA Group too. As of today, there are 58 members. 47 are called Swinfield or are members of one of its family trees. The other 11 members are friends and colleagues or are just interested in what we are trying to achieve and discover. I am grateful with all your support. If no-one reads it, what is the point of writing?

Of the 47 Swinfields, I can identify 37 of them with certainty on my pedigrees. The other 10 have yet to give me enough information to tell me exactly who they are. They can be categorised as:

Family 5:    20 members Family 3:    7 members Family 4:    8 members Family 33:  1 member Family 44:  1 member (Swinfield-Wells)

Of the eight major lines, on to which nearly all of us can be placed, we still have no representatives of the remaining three families which are now named as 1, 2 and 12.

If you want to look at the main family trees, albeit the male lines of ancestry and descent, these can be viewed on the Family Tree DNA Swinfield DNA & Genealogy website. There you should be able to link into your own Swinfield line. If not, let me know and I can consult my extensive records.

On the FTDNA site, you can also view the results of the limited number of DNAtests that we have done so far. More males are urgently needed to participate please so that we can learn so much more! Their sale price offer of just £80 is available until 31^st December. Any takers? Write to me at geoff@gsgs.co.uk .