I Need Your Help!

I have recently been looking at the birth entries that I can locate for children in the national indexes for England and Wales since the system began in July 1837. Currently, indexes are available up to the end of June 2024. They record the forenames of the child, the mother’s former surname and the district of birth.

In that time period of 187 years, I have listed exactly 1,000 children who have been given the surname of Swinfield (including Swinfield-Wells). I took the opportunity to see if the rate of those given our very unusual and rare surname had increased. In nearly two centuries, the population size has increased enormously from 16 million in 1841, when the first full census by name was taken, to over 32 million by 1901, and just under 60 million when the last census was compiled in 2021.

In the 20 year period from 1837 to 1856, 81 Swinfield births were recorded in England (none in Wales), about 4 children per year being given our surname. That rate of about 4 to 6 births per year continued from 1857 to 1976 (varying from just under 4 in the years from 1857-1876 to nearly 6 per year in 1917-1936). From 1977 to the middle of 2024, about 6.25 children per year have been named Swinfield. As a percentage of the national population, our surname is not flourishing!    

Up to 1979, I can identify the parentage of virtually all of the 710 Swinfield children registered and can therefore include them on one of the 4 large family trees which I have constructed for most Swinfields. However since 1980, of the 290 further births recorded, only 168 can be identified and added to one of the four trees.

Swinfield births registered from 2003 to 2005 from indexes on Ancestry.co.uk

What of the other 122 children called Swinfield registered from 1980 to mid-2024? Of those, 62 had mothers whose maiden surname was also recorded as Swinfield. They were probably born to single women and no father’s name was inserted on the birth certificate. The other 60 had a mother whose maiden or former name was different to Swinfield but for whom I cannot locate a recorded marriage to a man with the surname of Swinfield. That probably suggests that their parents were couples in a longer term relationship but have chosen not to formally marry.

Birth entry in index for 2005

In all 122 cases, I am therefore unable to add those children to a pedigree/family tree and link them to their parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins etc. It would be lovely to address this problem and place these Swinfields on the correct tree. For that to happen, I will need YOUR help and that of the wider Swinfield community.

Could you tell me about children in YOUR part of the family who were born from 1980 to as late as this year of 2024? Some of these people in your extended family would now be in their early 40s. I would need from you the child’s forenames and date (or year) of birth, their father’s name (if known) and the mother’s forename(s) and her maiden and/or former surname. If you know where the child was born that would provide excellent additional information to add. Please send me a list of as many of those that you know about. Christmas would be a great time to find and record this information. 

I would also be delighted to receive the equivalent information for those who are part of the Swinfield family of New South Wales, Australia. There, there are no publically-available birth indexes for that state for the past 100 years!    

I would be so grateful to receive whatever you can tell me about YOUR SWINFIELD family. Thank you and Happy Christmas.  

E-mail me at geoffswinfield@gmail.com .