DNA gives us more clues to a single ancestor!

Another DNA test result has now been received for a male Swinfield. John Arnold Swinfield of Family 2, who was one of thepeople who attended the Swinfield Gathering inSeptember 2013, commissioned a test from Family Tree DNA. We have now have the answer!

	Family	393	390	19	391	385a	385b	426	388	439	389a	392	389b	458	459a	459b	455	454
Derrick Swinfield	5F	13	24	14	11	11	14	12	12	11	13	13	29	17	9	10	11	11
John Swinfield	2	13	24	14	11	11	14	12	12	11	13	13	29	17	9	10	11	11
Maxwell Swinfield	12	13	24	14	11	11	14	12	12	11	13	13	29	17	9	10	11	11
Paul Swinfield	3	13	24	14	10	11	14	12	12	11	13	13	29	17	9	10	11	11
Andrew Swinfield	3A	13	24	14	10	11	14	12	12	11	13	13	29	17	9	9	11	11

447	437	448	449	464a	464b	464c	464d	460	GATA-H4	YCAIIa	YCAIIb	456	607	576	570	CDYa	CDYb	442	438
24	14	19	30	15	16	17	17	11	11	19	23	15						12	12
24	14	19	30	15	16	17	17	11	11	19	23	15	14	18	17	35	36	12	12
24	14	19	30	15	16	17	17	11	11	19	23	15	14	19	17	35	36	12	12
24	14	19	30	15	16	17	17	11	11	19	23	15	14	19	17	35	36	12	12
24	14	19	30	15	16	16	17	11	11	19	23	15	14	19	17	35	37	12	12

John is an exact match to Derrick Swinfield of Family 5 at the 32 markers at which both have been tested (Derrick's test was done through DNA Worldwide). This must surely lead us to the conclusion that families 2 and 5 have a common origin. Of the other three men, who have also had a 37 marker test from FTDNA, Maxwell from Australia, a member of Family 12, differs at only one marker from John, giving him what is termed a "genetic distance" of only 1, having a different value at marker DYS 576. Paul Swinfield of Family 3, has a genetic distance of 2 from John, also having a different value at marker DYS 391. Surprisingly Andrew, Paul's cousin, has a “GD” of 5, having a different STR value at three other markers. However, they do share a common mutation at DYS 391 where, unlike the other three men, they have a value of 10.   

John, Derrick, Maxwell and Paul all seem to have a "typical" Swinfield Y-chromosome. It is now very likely that the four families which they represent (2, 3, 5 & 12) have a common origin. They must surely share a common ancestor, within the last seven centuries, since the surname of Swinfield came into existence! I wonder how the other main branch, Family 1, would match up?

All we have to do now is to find the “paper trail”, through genealogical research, to join them all together. Easier said than done!

John and his sister, Clare Woodward, can trace their ancestry back to Burbage via the parish of Quorn(don). Their great-grandparents are buried in the churchyard there. In the adjacent grave is their infant son, William Henry, who died at only 6 months. This parish has a fantastic website which provides access to most of its records.

How is their great-great-great-grandfather, the blacksmith of Burbage, who was born about 1773/4, related to the earliest known ancestor of each of the other main branches? The DNA results tell us that they were all “cousins”! 

Another Swinfield Gathering in Australia

Another reunion of members of one of the Swinfield families took place in late 2013. This time the meeting was in Australia.

Wolvey, Warwickshire

Wolvey church

Since 2003, Raymond Francis Swinfield recently of Rozelle, NSW, and myself have corresponded about the origins of his branch of the Swinfield family. He is part of what I have called Family 3B, stemming from William Swinfield (1804-1876), the tailor of Wolvey and Nuneaton in Warwickshire, and his second wife, Sarah Williamson. They emigrated to Australia in 1848, taking with them their five younger children aged from 7 to 18. The majority of Australian Swinfields are descended from this couple through their sons John (1838-1903) and Daniel (1842-1877). I wrote about Ray's family in Part 23 of this Blog in November 2012 and in Part 8 of September 2011. He and his three brothers are the great-great-grandsons of William and Sarah through Daniel.

The three boys in 1938: 
John, James & Ray

The three "boys" in 2013: John, James & Ray

On 14th September 2013, following his move into a retirement home due to ill health, Ray received an unexpected visit from many members of his extended family. These included his older brother, John Anthony (born 1933), and his younger brother, James Ronald (who was born in 1935). They had not met for more than 20 years! Other members of the family who were present were John's wife Annette, their son David and his wife, also Annette,and their two grandchildren. Jim was accompanied by his daughter, Deborah, her husband and their two children.

Back row: Samantha Mary, Annette Mary, Annette Marie, John Anthony, David Gerard, James Ronald, Edward James Adcock, Deborah Jane (Adcock), Madison Alexandra Adcock  
Front row: Lachlan David, Raymond Francis, an unknown woman    
Photograph taken by Michael James Adcock 

A very happy meeting of 12 members of the Swinfield clan together in one place for first time. It just does to show that it is never too late to meet up with our relatives!

Family 2 was there too

John, Geoff & Clare study the family trees  

Brother and sister, John Swinfield and Clare Woodward, were representatives of Family 2 who came to the Swinfield Gathering. This is one of the smaller branches of the tree and extends back to John Swinfield who died in February 1851. He had been the blacksmith at Burbage, Leicestershire, for many years and was

Will of John Swinfield proved 1856

clearly much respected in his community as reflected by the notice of his death, published in the Leicester Mercury. He left a will which was not proved until 1856.

It is through his youngest son, William (1825-1900), who married Susannah Collier (1827-1891) at Ratby in 1852 that John and Clare can trace their descent from their great-great-great-grandfather. They are the only Swinfield descendants from that union and were able to provide me with photographs of their great-grandparents, John William Swinfield and Catherine Shield, and their son, John Henry Shield Swinfield (1890-1965).

John William & Catherine
(Shield) at their wedding
in 1915 

John Henry, Marjorie Claire & Mary Jane
Swinfield at The Corner,
Donington le Heath

John,the blacksmith, had a very large family of at least 12 children.However, from those there are only three lines of descent to people currently called Swinfield. One branch would not carry the Swinfield Y-chromosome as it can be traced back to his daughter, Martha, born in 1817, who had an illegitimate son Alfred (1836-1899). That branch culminates in about 11 people who bear the surname today and who all descend from his son Tom (1859-1910).

The only other living Swinfield line from the 12 children is through their oldest son, Joseph (1800-1849), who like his nephew Alfred, continued the family trade of blacksmith in the Burbage area, which they probably learned from their father and grandfather respectively. There are 8 living

Burbage parish church 

Swinfields who stem from his great-grandson Frederick (1887-1954) who worked all his life on the railways in Leicester.

Burbage village from the churcyard

The origins of this branch can only be extended if we can find the baptism of John Swinfield who was born about 1773/4. We do not know where he came from as his died just a month before the 1851 census was taken in which he would have stated where he believed he had been born. All we know is that he married Catherine Lawson at Thurlaston in 1800. His origins are probably in that area of Leicestershire.

John Swinfield has indicated that he would be willing to provide a DNA sample so that we can compare his Y-chromosome against those already tested for living males from families 3, 5 & 12. If they match, it is likely that Family 2 also shares that common origin and allfour lineages descend from one ancestor! I will keep you posted.  

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.

We were there at Appleby!

It is amazing that, after all the planning and fretting that no-one would be there, the Swinfield Gathering happened! On Sunday, 22nd September 2013, 37 people actually came to the Sir John Moore Foundation in Appleby Magna, Leicestershire, to meet others who are interested in the surname and its history. I do not know if any were inspired to attend through the interview which I did with Radio Leicester on the Saturday morning.

It was so gratifying that all seemed to enjoy such a great afternoon. A beautiful room where our hosts gave us such a warm welcome and couldn't have been more accommodating. My thanks must go to Sandra and Allan who found such a good venue where we could display and study all the family trees, photographs and documents that have been gathered during so many years of research. New cousins were discovered and it was so exciting when attendees found that they were cousins of some degree, albeit in some cases fairly distant. I met people for the first time who have the same great-great-great-grandparents and are therefore my 5th cousins. How amazing it was to put a face and personality to what had previously only been a name on a pedigree!

The early arrivals 

Those present were:

Family 2: John Swinfield & Clare Woodward

Family 3: Paul and Julie Swinfield

Family 4A: Rachel, Tracey, Katie and Kirstie Swinfield

Family 5: Geoff, Derrick, Mark, Darren (& Tina Carter), Kierran, Kristofer, Aaron, Michael and Alan Swinfield; Dawn Moore-Elphick, Pat & Matt Kirby

Family 12: Stephen & Katherine Swinfield, Sue Regan (all the way from Australia who worked so hard on the day)

The Bates Family (part of Family 5A): Sandra Bates, Allan Francis, Arthur Eyre, Jean Millward, Elizabeth Lubek, Michael Lower, Peter Chapman, Ann Birch, John Bates, Brian and Susan Kendrick

David Bligh, a resident of Appleby Magna

Administrator: Di Bouglas (who did so much to make it run smoothly and ensure that people found themselves on the right tree!)

This is, I hope, just the beginning of those new friendships and relationships. It would be great if we can continue to build on what was achieved on that special afternoon. I will be blogging about the exciting

The afternoon gathering

connections and discoveries that were made. You will hear lots from me about each of the families who were there. I hope that you too will have more to contribute as you go back to your close family to ask questions and collect still more memories and photographs to share. I know that some have been inspired to take this further and will visit older relatives who were not able to be there. Please send me what you learn and I will happily add that to the future blogs.

Don't just rely on me to produce the copy, you can contribute to the study too. Let's not let that enthusiasm just fade away. We will put together a Swinfield e-mailing list and if you, or anyone else you know, would like to be added, just let us know at geoff@gsgs.co.uk. That way, you will be kept in touch with all the news and notified when a new blog is published. Don't forget the Swinfield Genealogy and DNA Facebook Group. 

Come and join us there too to see what we are talking about. Keep in touch! We are so pleased to have met you all.  

The Swinfields are coming home!

In July 2013, I wrote about what is known about the earliest members of each of the current Swinfield lineages. Since then further research has connected Family 33 to Family 5. Family 44 has been joined to Family 12. So we are down to only four or five distinct groups which can be traced back to the middle of the 18th century, whose roots lie in that small area to the west of Leicester either side of the A5 (Watling Street). Last weekend, whilst at the Exodus genealogical conference at Hinckley Island, I was in the heart of Swinfield country. More photographs could be taken of churches and graveyards where our ancestors were baptised, married and buried. It is amazing to remember that they walked through those doors and stood around those fonts more 250 years ago.

So where did the Swinfields live in the previous century during the Civil War from 1642-1660? What did they witness then and how did they live? Parish registers reveal that the name appeared frequently then at

Markfield church

Ibstock, Markfield, Hugglescote, Shackerstone and Thornton in Leicestershire. It is also to be found further in places like Weeford in Staffordshire and Old Swinford in Worcestershire. Swinfields also lived in London, where they used the churches at St Michael Crooked Lane, St Peter Cornhill, St Botolph Aldgate and St Giles, south of the Thames, in Camberwell. The Londoners had “died out” by the time of the Great Fire in 1666. How were they related?

St Magnus the Martyr, London  

Shackerstone church

Wills have survived for 14 Swinfields in the 16th and 17th centuries. Seven of those were for the family of fishmongers, the earliest dating from 1558, who lived and worked in the area of St Magnus the Martyr in the City of London very close to Fishmongers Hall. There must have been close connections with those in the Midlands as William, who died in 1593, left his cloak, his buff jerkin and a hat to his brother Richard who still lived at Odson, Leicestershire. I suspect that this would be the hamlet of Odstone

Will of William Swingfelde fishmonger of London 1593

which lies between Ibstock and Shackerstone.

Of the Leicestershire testators, we have documents for three brothers, William, John and Ralph who lived at Heather, Ibstock and Donington and died from 1633 to 1658. They left bequests to each other and may have been the grandsons of William of Sutton Cheney who died as early as 1570. All these places are less than 10 miles apart.

Will of George Swinfield of Appleby Magna 1680

In the next generation, John's sons and nephews (the children of his brother Ralph) all had land in Appleby Magna. The family would have been very familiar with the spectacular boy's school, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1697 for Sir John Moore, Lord Mayor of London in 1681.
This is where the Swinfield Gathering will be held on Sunday, 22nd September 2013. We are coming home.

The question now is “did the Swinfields come from London or Leicestershire?"

Countdown to the Swinfield Gathering: Five weeks to go!

It is now only five weeks until we all meet up at the Swinfield Gathering on Sunday, 22nd September. It is great that some of you have already told us that you will definitely be there.

If you have not let us know that you are intending to come, there is still time to plan your visit. I have been trying to encourage and persuade as many people as possible to attend so that we will all have the opportunity to meet as many other “Swinfields” as possible. To date, I have no idea how many will be there but I am hopeful that it will be somewhere between 40 and 70.

Many will come from the family's homeland in Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Others have pledged to come from as far away as Kent, Hampshire, Devon and Yorkshire. We even have Sue Regan who is travelling all the way from Australia, to represent “our cousins”, who are descended from those who have emigrated to the other side of the World on several occasions since 1848.

If you have not yet pinned down your immediate relatives, who may decide to be there, now is the time to twist their arms. If they are not there, who knows when they will get another chance like this. Use all your persuasive skills to get them to come along.

So what will you be able to do and see on the day? We will be at the SirJohn Moore Foundation at Top Street, Appleby Magna, Leicestershire DE12 7AH from 12 noon to 6pm. It is a great venue in a lovely setting. You can be there for as long as you want or just drop in at some point in the afternoon with your family to see what is happening. Even if all of your party is not madly interested in the Gathering, bring them along and they can enjoy the grounds or have a picnic. There will be light refreshments for sale in the cafe.

In the meeting room in the main building, you will be able to spend time with the other Swinfields who are present. Some of them, we will know, are your proven relations. You will be able to find yourselves (with our help if necessary) on the displayed family trees, which have been constructed through over 40 years of research into those who share our rare surname. You will be able to consult our databases to learn more about your extended family and ancestors.

We want to compile a photographic record of those who are present which we can then all share. So we need to have as many Swinfields present as possible, aged from 0 to 100! There will even be an opportunity to see what DNA tests have told us about the relationship between the distinct family groups.

Please bring with you any Swinfield photographs. These can be of any members who are no longer with us or your relatives who just cannot be there on the day. Share with us all any old documents which you have in your cupboard or attic. These could be birth, marriage or death certificates, apprenticeships, wills etc. Collect them together and bring them with you. We would love to see them and share your family stories.

This will be a unique chance to meet your cousins and share in the history of the Swinfields. Don't miss it! Bring your relatives with you. The more the better! See you all at Appleby in just five weeks' time.

Geoff Swinfield, Di Bouglas & Sandra Bates