Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
How many generations in the Swift line can you tell us? Gustavus Swift appears to have been a descendant of William Swift of Sandwich England. There has been some interesting effort in recent years to determine the state of ties between the Sandwich Swifts and the house of Swift in Sheffield which was the origins of Dean Jonathan Swift's family. Ralph Swift I think has probably posted on this site concerning that. The only Swift line (except that one) that appears to have certain ties to the Sheffield branch are the William Swift of London, Bermuda and Virginia branch located mainly in the south. Many if not most of the Swift branches in America claim some time with Dean Jonathan Swift of Ireland and for once the supposition may not be so far fetched. Swift was a little unusual as a surname. It appears to have originated in Northumbria (Brian Swift is probably the earlier ancestor you traced back to) and there was a main branch settled at Sheffield. This branch probably in the earlier years sent off shoots that populated all of the north midlands (Lancaster, Derby, York, etc) though most of the connections would have to be before the age of good record keeping in that area so we cannot be sure. There is another concentration of the surname Swift in the Southwest (Somerset, Wiltshire, Devon and Dorset) though this could have been a transplantation dating from the War of the Roses era. Or the name could have been taken up there independently as in the North.
The Swift name is interestingly an attribute surname in Anglo Saxon (deriving from Seif - meaning swift). Most Anglo Saxon names in the high middle ages were occupational names or patronymics that had been made permanent surnames - the Welsh made the same change about that time. Attributional or place name surnames tended to be the province of the Normans (at least as long as we are talking the era 1300 to 1400) Some have said the Dudleys were a saxon line who had been enobled and adopted a place name as surname and Jonathan Swift himself seemed quite proud of the supposition that his mother's maiden name "Erick" supposedly descended from some local Saxon magnate named Eric. The fact was it tended to be a bit rare and names attributing characteristics to the seignurial or nobles classes were typically in French. Well it is an interesting surname anyway and it is possible that there is a fairly high degree of relatedness among those of British origin who bear it or descend from it to this day.
Best Regards
Grady Loy
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/swift/messages/2375.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|