Family 5 was there in force!

Three weeks have now passed since we were all together at Appleby. It is very sad that the Gathering has 

Swinfield Families
3, 5, 2 & 12 all together at last!

come and gone. Will we meet again I wonder? What did we discover about the families of those who were there? It was so good that we had at least one representative from each of the major families.

Sandra Bates and her family and trees 

Family 5 was the most represented with 13 attendees. There were another 11 member of the extended Bates family there too, being close relatives of Sandra, who did so much to organise the event. These all stem from the marriage in 1803 at Kirby Mallory of Thomas Swinfield (1770-1833) and Sarah Toon (1776-1821) and are “on paper” descendants from their two sons, Thomas (1808-1893) and William (1813-1885). This part of our history was described in Part 1 of this Blog which I wrote way back in September 2011.

Family 5D: Aaron, Kierran, Kristofer, Darren,
Alan, Dawn & Michael - newly found cousins

I am documented as the great-great-grandson of Thomas (1841-1905) whilst Sandra and her family are descended from his wife, Sarah Swinfield nee Hewitt, through her illegitimate son, Joseph (1843-1905).

Families 5F & 5D: Mark, Derrick, Tina Carter,
Kierran, Aaron, Darren & Geoff meet for the first time 

William Swinfield was the forebear of the other members of Family 5 who were at the Gathering. He had two grandsons, George Ernest Tertius Swinfield senior (born 1876) and Joseph Herbert Swinfield (born 1880), of Family 5D. Michael and his son and daughter, Alan and Dawn, are from George Ernest Tertius junior. Darren and his three sons 

Paul Swinfield (Family 3) with Mark Swinfield
& Pat Kirby (Family 5F) study the displays

who were there, Aaron, Kristofer and Kierran, are descended from Joseph Herbert. As such, Alan, Dawn and Darren are 2nd cousins. Joseph Herbert has grandchildren now named Derrick George Joseph Swinfield and Pat Kirby (Family 5F). They too were present with their respective sons, Mark Swinfield and Matt Kirby, who are 3rd cousins to the younger descendants of Family 5D. They are all the 4th cousins, once removed, of yours truly!

It is a pity that, despite expressing their intention to attend, no-one was there from the other very large parts of this lineage, being Families 5B and 5E. It would have been great if they had been there too. They would have met so many new cousins too.

These relationships and trees can all be seen on the Family Tree DNAwebsite.