Having
used DNA tests to confirm the probability that the Swinfields of
Family 3 & 4 and those of Family 5 have a common ancestry, the
question now is where do they “join up”? Is the link between
these two major lineages in the 17th century, the 15th century or as
early as the 1300s, shortly after Swinfield was chosen by our distant
ancestors to be used from then onwards as our hereditary surname?
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Marriage of John Swinfield at Wolvey in 1755 |
In
Part 7 of this Blog, which I have now been writing since the end of
August 2011, you will find what is known about the origins of Family
3 & 4. Its story can currently be extended back as far as the
marriage of John Swinfield and Frances Collins at
Wolvey in Warwickshire on 25th August 1755. They had five children baptised in
that parish church from 1756 to 1781. It was their last son, Thomas,
who is the earliest known ancestor of not only all living Swinfields
who were born in Australia but also many other English people with
the surname whose male ancestors did not choose to travel to the
other side of the World. You can read more about those parts of the
Swinfield lineage in other episodes of this Blog.
Those
of us whose descent is via Family 5 and its numerous branches in
England can trace our ancestry back to the parish of
Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, in the first decade of the 19th century. In Part 1, I
outlined our descent from Thomas (1808-1893), who is “on paper”
my great-great-grandfather. Thereby, as avid readers who have been
paying close attention will know, hangs another story! He and his
brother, William Swinfield (1813-1885), who married Elizabeth Kenny
at Cosby in 1832, are the progenitors of everyone on this tree.
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Kirkby Mallory church |
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Ashby-de-la-Zouch church |
Their
parents, Thomas Swinfield and Sarah Toon, had married at
Kirkby Mallory in 1803 and were to be buried at Earl Shilton in 1833 and
1821 respectively. Thomas, who was christened on New Year's Day 1770
in the church of St Helen's in the town of
Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, was the only son of John Swinfield and Jane Radford,
who had married there two years previously. John's sister,
Alice, also married in that church just five months earlier. John buried his wife in 1809 but he survived until the ripe old age of 81,
before dying in April 1820.
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Inside of Ashby church |
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Smisby church |
John
and Alice were both baptised in the neighbouring church of
Smisby,
where they had lived when they married, which lies across the county
boundary into Derbyshire. He was christened on 13th August 1738 and
Alice was named in 1744 by their parents, John and Mary
Swinfield. John senior lived until 1788, then being laid to rest in
Smisby churchyard. They had produced five known issue.
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Marriage of John Swinfield at Norton in 1732 |
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Norton-juxta-Twycross |
It
is probable that John Swinfield married Mary Meacham some eight miles
to the south in the church of
Norton-juxta-Twycross, back in
Leicestershire, on 30th May 1732. To date, I cannot identify a
convincing candidate for the baptism of this man in the very late
17th or, more likely, the first decade of the 18th century.
So
how close did the earliest known ancestors of these two major
Swinfield lineages, both called John, live about 1720? They were
about 15 miles apart as the crow flies across the fields of
north-west Leicestershire. Did they know each other and were they
near kin?
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