First Swaseys in Massachusetts - Research Notes

Date: Oct 2022 [unknown]
Location: Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States
Surnames/tags: Swasey Swayze Swazey

John Swasey (abt.1584-abt.1686)

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1) October 2022 -- Brad Stauf searched for the earliest documented appearance in New England of this family, in the context of determining if they should be included in the Puritan Great Migration Project:

Where did the family appear and when?

• Essex Quarterly Court Records Vol. 1 p. 206 3 Feb 1650/51 John Swaysy listed as husband of Katherine King (2nd daughter of deceased William King). This would be Swazey-126. Earliest appearance.
• Great Migration Vol 4 page 175 on 15 March 1652/53(?) John Swasy of Salem sold his dwelling house to widow Dorothy King (widow of the above William) citing Essex County Deeds 1:17. Whether this was John Sr. or John Jr. is not said.
• First Church of Salem on 19 Apr 1666 (page 27 https://archive.org/details/recordsoffirstch00firs_0/page/26/mode/2up) we have members Joseph, Elizabeth, Mary, Abigail, Samuel, John children of Mary Swasy. Was this Mary the wife of Joseph Swazey-101, one of the two immigrating sons of John Swazey Sr. and brother of John Swazey-125 "Junior"? His profile has no wife listed but does list children Joseph, Elizabeth and Mary although unsourced.
• Savage's Genealogical Dictionary (Vol. 4 p. 237 https://archive.org/details/genealogicaldic04savarich/page/236/mode/2up) says that Joseph (one of the immigrant sons) was in Salem by 1668 and it was perhaps his daughter Elizabeth who married a Lightfoot. Nothing at all about any John Swazey.
• Salem Vital Records earliest entries are for the children of Joseph & Mary Swazey starting with daughter Mary in 1653 https://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Essex/Salem/aBirthsS.shtml so clearly Savage was a bit off-base on this family. The earliest death for somebody of this name was 1762.
• Essex County Deeds earliest entry as grantee was Joseph Swazey from Abraham Cole on 14 Jan 1680 for land or property in Salem (Book 5 entry 102) index here https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99ZZ-BSHL?i=252&cc=2106411&cat=209907
• Essex County Deeds earliest entry as grantor was the 1652 entry mentioned by Anderson to Dorothy King (Book 1 Entry 17) index here https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99ZZ-YYPD?i=522&cc=2106411&cat=209907. Original deed is here https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9ZZ-BCR4?i=61&cc=2106411&cat=209907 but sheds no light on when he acquired the land. Deeds did not start being recorded until 1640 but in no way does this prove that John obtained the land before 1640 himself.
• Town Records of Salem (1634-1680) only appearance is Joseph in 1681 https://archive.org/details/cu31924105756856/page/n337/mode/2up

In what reliable sources did they not appear?

• "List of freemen, Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1630 to 1691 : with freeman's oath, the first paper printed in New England" has no name remotely close to Swazey https://archive.org/details/cu31924028814304/page/n33/mode/2up
• Did not appear in Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England Vol. 1 1628-1641 (also no appearance in Vol 2 or 3 which covers up to 1657). Did not appear in the index of freemen in volumes 1 or 2.
• Hotten's "Persons of Quality" has no name similar to Swazey in the index https://archive.org/details/originallistspe00hottgoog/page/571/mode/2up
• Pope's "Pioneers of Massachusetts" has no Swazey in the index https://archive.org/details/pioneersofmassac00pope/page/546/mode/2up
• Shurtleff's "Plymouth Colony" vols 1 & 2 (court orders) have no Swazey in the index covering through 1651 just in case he lived there at some time (nor did Volume 8 "Miscellaneous" records)
• Boyer's "Ship's Passenger Lists" has no Swazey https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/43305/?offset=0#page=261&viewer=picture&o=&n=0&q=

Did they arrive in 1632? The "sources" for this claim on this profile are auto-aggregated "sources" from ancestry.com with, let's say "highly variable" quality.

• Colket's "Founders of Early America" must be completely disregarded. The funding "Patriots" organization is a vanity membership group which does not vet the submissions of it's members.
• Marion Turk's 1983 "The quiet adventurers in North America" asserts that John arrived with sons John and Joseph p. 618 Swasey. Her focus was Channel Islands immigrants and noted that John Swazey "was said to be of Jersey" and that, along with Phillip English who was apparently from Jersey, "laid out English Street in Salem with John's sons" noting that John had 7 children. She then went on to say that a DIFFERENT John Swasey came from England in 1632 with sons John & Joseph, that they were Quakers and that they removed from Salem to Southold, Long Island. Turk gives as her sources the December 1930 "Boston Transcript", Perley III; Swasey and "Driver Gen".
  • Perley is Sydney Perley's "History of Salem 3:7 which starts the family in New England with John "Junior" who married Katherine King but says nothing of their English origins and says that this John died in 1706 at Aquaboge, Long Island (his profile says 1692 but is unsourced).
  • The Boston Evening Transcript Genealogy sections from December 1930 is available at familysearch.org but is not indexed so may take some time to review this well-known genealogy column. Again, these were typically reader submissions with highly variable quality and sourcing. Swazey in any of it's spellings does not seem to appear as a primary topic of either the "Questions" or "Answers" sections so why it was included in Turk's sources is not yet clear but it seemed to be associated with their removal to Southold, LI rather than their supposed English origin.
  • "Swasey" is ([er the Bibliography) the Swasey Family Genealogy from 1910 cited on this profile which, as has been noted, is unsourced.
  • "Driver Gen" is the 1889 Driver Family book by Harriet Ruth Waters Cooke. It first encounters a Swasey in about 1727 marrying into the Driver family so says nothing about the Swazey family origins.

So in the end, ancestry.com's "U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s" claim for a 1632 immigration relies on Colket which is completely unreliable and Turk who relies soley on the unsourced 1910 writings of Benjamin Franklin Swazey.

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2) One of the descendants of the 'Jersey Settler' Swayzes took the Benjamin Franklin Swasey book and looked for original records to support each part of the story. See a pdf of a talk he gave to other Jersey Settler descendants in 2014.