John Swasey (abt. 1584 - abt. 1686)

Born about 1584 in England [uncertain]

Husband of Margaret (Smithe) Swasey — married about 1610 in Sherborne, Dorset, England [uncertain]

Died about 1686 at about age 102 in Southold, Long Island, New York

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John Swasey is currently protected by the Puritan Great Migration Project for reasons described in the narrative. Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: PGM

This person may not have existed. This profile is being overseen by the PGM project due to confusion about his immigration date to New England, as well as his “sons” John and Joseph Swasey.

Biography

According to Benjamin Franklin Swasey, in his 1910 book, Genealogy of the Swasey Family, John Swasey-5 of this profile was born in 1584 in England and arrived in Salem, Massachusetts with his two "sons", John Swazey-126, and Joseph Swazey-101 in about 1632. ^[1]

It has been noted, however, that there are no records to support these statements, -- no evidence that John Swasey-5 was the father of John Swazey-126 and Joseph Swazey-101 or that John and Joseph were brothers. Therefore John and Joseph's parents are currently shown as unknown.

There is also no record of the family being in Massachusetts before about 1650.

Research notes

The data for this profile (in the data fields) is copied from Benjamin Franklin Swasey, Genealogy of the Swasey family. ^[2] However, this book does not cite its sources; original documentation is sought.

• "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=

Notes on Arrival

Did the Swaseys of this profile arrive in 1632? The "sources" for this claim are auto-aggregated 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 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 solely on the unsourced 1910 writings of Benjamin Franklin Swasey.

For additional notes see John Swasey Research Notes.

Sources

1. ↑ Swasey, Benjamin Franklin. Genealogy of the Swasey Family Privately Printed for Ambrose Swasey, Cleveland, Ohio 1910, p. 33 - 35. p. 33 - 35
2. ↑ Benjamin Franklin Swasey, Genealogy of the Swasey family : which includes the descendants of the Swezey families of Southhold, Long Island, New York and the descendants of the Swayze families of Roxbury, now Chester, New Jersey, Cleveland, OH: Private Printing 1910, starting on page 19