The Swenys/Sweeneys/Swinneys
Part 3
The Historical Evidence for Swenys in Central Virginia and North Carolina
Documents uncovered in Cumberland Co. and Amelia Co., Va. represent the first direct evidence that Swenys from the Tidewater region migrated into an area of Virginia where the ancestors of our modern-day Sweeneys/Swinneys were first recorded. The first two records were from the Cumberland County February Court 1762, which met on Feb. 22, 1762. First, a request by Charles Scott to build a mill on Muddy Creek was continued to the March Court. The same February Court also approved John Scott, Charles Scott's older brother, as the guardian of Frances Sweny, "infant orphan of Merritt Sweny, decd." (see the second part of the image above). In colonial Virginia, anyone under 21 years of age was legally an infant. Since Merritt Sweny's daughter, Frances, was born on June 21, 1744, she was a 17 year old infant in the eyes of the Cumberland County court. In the March Court 1762, which met on March 22, 1762, the decision was made for Charles Scott to meet with the owners of the land on the opposite side of Muddy Creek to see if a deal could be worked out for him to compensate the owners of the land for any damages that might accrue by building his "Watergrist Mill." Finally, at the April Court 1762, which met on April 26, 1762, an indenture was filed "between Charles Scott of the first part, Frances Sweny of the second part, John Scott of the third part and George Carrington junior of the fourth part." We suspect this indenture was the result of the negotiations between Charles Scott and the landowners for the development of his "Watergrist Mill." What this indenture likely tells us is that Charles Scott and Frances Sweny had not married by April 26, 1762, that the land on which the water mill was to be built was owned by Frances Sweny and that the guardianship was created, in part, to smooth the way for building Charles's grist mill. We can assume Charles and John Scott were sincerely looking out for Frances's interests since, later in 1762, Charles married Frances Sweny (see marriage record). Charles Scott and Frances Sweny remained married until her death in 1804 in Woodford Co., Ky. (see below for more on Charles Scott's career).
So, how and when did Frances get to Cumberland County? Her father, Merritt Sweny had died on Feb. 5, 1746 (1745 according to the Julian calendar) in Charles Parish, York Co., Va. Her mother's father, Francis Howard, died on March 14, 1747 (1746 according to the Julian calendar). It took awhile for the affairs of both Francis and Merritt to be wrapped up, but it appears that soon after the process was completed, Mary Sweny moved to Amelia Co., Va. We suspect the Tabb family may have facilitated the move, since Tabb family members were already living in that area. Mary Sweny's mother Martha was a Tabb and the Sweny family had long ties with the Tabb family. By way of corroboration, we found a damaged 1751 marriage document in Amelia County. The bride appears to be a "Swinney Widow"; the groom is Daniel, whose last name is torn away; and the co-surity was Thomas Tabb. This could very well be the marriage record of Frances Sweny's mother, Mary Sweny, but too much information is missing to make it definitive. At the time, Frances would have been seven years old and Mary would have been a 29 year old widow of five years. Our next find would seem to confirm this as her marriage record. On February 23, 1761, the last will of Daniel Mayo was recorded in Cumberland County court. He left 400 acres to his wife Mary and several slaves including a few names that appeared on the list of slaves Mary inherited from her father. He also left slaves to his "Daughter in Law [stepdaughter] Frances Swenny." Again, the list of names included some that are familiar from Mary's inheritance. Daniel Mayo also left property to his sons Daniel Mayo and William Mayo. Both sons and Frances Sweny were described as being under the age of 21. We do not know if the two sons were Daniel Mayo's children by a previous marriage or two children he and Mary had after they were married. Mary (Sweny) Mayo died intestate before July 21, 1773, the date her inventory and appraisal were filed with the Cumberland County court. Of course, without a will, we do not know how her estate was apportioned. In the few records found to date, we also do not know what happened to her son Daniel Sweny. There were several Daniels in the Sweny family and one of them appeared in York County records beginning in 1760 when Daniel Sweny, son of Merritt and Mary, would have been 17 years of age. It may be that Daniel stayed behind in York County and lived with one of the families that were close to the Sweny family.
Around the time Mary Sweny appeared in Amelia and Cumberland counties, Abraham, Moses and John Swinney were living in Amelia County, the same county in which it appears that Mary Sweny married Daniel Mayo and where John Scott's co-surity on Frances's 1762 guardianship record, also named John Scott, lived. We're not sure if these Swinneys/Swineys/Swenys were related to the Tidewater Swenys. Abraham seems to have married his wife Elizabeth/Betty in Spottsylvania Co., Va. in the 1750s, about 15 after John and Mary Swinney first appeared in that county. He then showed up in Amelia County. His last will was recorded in nearby Chesterfield Co., Va. in 1770. We're fairly confident that Moses and John Swinney of Amelia Co., Va. later moved to Amherst Co., Va. and that Moses was the earliest known ancestor of Sweeney154 and Sweeney181 (see below). We may find a link between these three male Swinneys and Mary and Frances Sweny, but for now, we can only speculate.
Charles Scott went on to have an illustrious career in the military and politics. Like Frances Sweny, Charles and John Scott were orphans. Rather than have a guardian appointed for him when he was 16 years old, Charles Scott joined the Virginia militia. He fought in the French and Indian War before marrying Frances Sweny at the age of 23. In the Revolutionary war he served under Gen. George Washington in the Philadelphia Campaign, commanding Washington's light infantry. Later he served under General Benjamin Lincoln in the southern theater. After the war, he and Frances relocated to Kentucky where Charles Scott commanded troops in the Indian Wars and achieved the rank of Major General commanding the 2nd Division of Kentucky militia. After Frances died in 1804, Charles Scott entered politics and in 1808 was elected the fourth Governor of Kentucky. Scott died in 1813 at the age of 73.
The above patrilineal tree is based on what we know so far about the Swenys in early colonial America. It assumes the Swenys of Elizabeth City Co., Va. were the progenitors of both the modern-day Sweeney/Swinneys/Whites who test positive for FT55898, as well as the modern-day Pruitts descended from Samuel Pruitt. As we'll see below, that assumption has not been proven. As far as we can determine based on wills and birth records, Edmund Sweny, Jr. had four sons and all must have been positive for FT55898. We can deduce this based on the fact that we've found five modern day Sweeney/Swinneys and Whites who are all positive for FT55898 and none share a more recent terminal SNP. On average, it takes two or three generations for a new SNP to emerge in a family line; therefore, it is likely that these Sweny descendants broke off from each other pretty soon after the generations shown on this tree. The descendants of Samuel Pruitt, Sr. must have been a separate branch from Edmund Sweny, Jr. since they are not positive for FT55898. That means Samuel Pruitt could have descended from a son or brother of Edmund Sweny, Sr., but not from Edmund Sweny, Jr. Given that Samuel was born 45 years after the Swenys arrived in the colonies, our bet would be that he was a grandson or great-grandson of Edmund Sweny, Sr., through an unknown son of his, or he was the son or grandson of an unknown brother of Edmund Sweny, Sr. In either case, Edmund Sweny, Sr. would have to have had another son (or an immigrant brother) who has not shown up in historical records.
If our Samuel Pruitt, born around 1700, and Samuell Prewtt, born Feb. 1, 1700 in Northumberland Co., Va. are the same person, how can we account for his father being a Sweny? While there are no records of Swenys living in Northumberland County in the 1600s or early 1700s, there are records of Swaines/Swainies living there. In particular, a Thomas Swaine/Swainie appeared in a 1658 court record and an Isaac Swainie, orphaned son of Charles Swainie appeared in a 1713 court record. Sweny, Sweeney, Swinney, and Swaney are just a few of the ways this family name was spelled over the years. It's certainly possible to imagine that Thomas Swaine/Swainie was a brother or cousin of Edmund Sweny, Sr. and that Thomas had a son named Charles and a grandson named Isaac. Since he was designated an orphan in 1713, Isaac could not have been old enough to have fathered Samuell Prewtt in 1700; however, his father or an older brother could have been old enough. Of course, the father of Samuel Pruitt need not have been a Sweny if there was another non-parental event (NPE) before Samuel's biological father was born. We also know that, along with conducting business with London, the Swenys were into shipping. A Samuel Swinney was identified in the early 1720s as the owner of a ship, the Sarah and Mary, a 30-ton sloop built in 1709 and registered in Virginia. There were many ports of call in the Tidewater region and, in particular, the Northern Neck area where Rosamond had her son. If a Sweny was the father, he would have to have been born around 1680 or earlier. Given the extensive dealings the Swenys had with London, New York and other ports, it's likely they owned several ships and visited many ports of call in the Tidewater and Northern Neck areaa. However, if the sons of Edmund Sweny, Jr. were the progenitors of every descendant of modern day Sweeneys, Swinneys, and Whites, then the seafaring Sweny who fathered Samuel Prewtt would have to have been descended from a brother or an unknown son of Edmund Sweny, Sr. The only other option to any of these scenarios is one in which the SNP FT55898 was formed, not in Edmund Sweny, Jr.'s Y-DNA, but in one of his sons. In that case, it would leave open the possibility that another son started the line in which the Pruitt SNP Y168267 was formed. We've already seen that there are lengthy gaps in the source documents in which Samuel, Merritt and Lazarus could have had marriages and children. It's theoretically possible that one son fathered Samuel Pruitt while he visited Northumberland County and another fathered the rest of the Sweeney/Swinney descendants who have taken Y-DNA tests in recent years. If true, we might expect to see a Sweeney/Swinney with the same SNP, Y168267, as the Pruitts; however, no such tester has appeared to date. We would also expect other Sweny descendants to be descended from FT18699, but not FT55898/fT48931. To date, that has not been found to be the case in any tester we've seen. The theory that the terminal SNPs that define the Pruitts and Sweeneys/Swinneys/Whites formed in sons of Edmund Sweny, Jr. must be considered the least likely, but not impossible.
The Tidewater Area of Virginia as the Starting Point for Further Research
Elizabeth City Co., Va. is just south of Gloucester County, the presumed base of operations for Col. Robert Abrahall. Gloucester County is just south of Northumberland County. The three locations are around 60 to 70 miles apart in total. It's not known whether any of these individuals, Col. Robert Abrahall, the Swenys or Rosamond Prewtt, knew each other. All of this needs to be researched in more depth to see if a more detailed family tree can be constructed and to see if any of our Swinneys/Sweeneys/Whites/Pruitts can be tied to the descendants of Edmund Sweny, Sr. Geography and Y-DNA testing provide the basis for the scenario that a descendant of an unknown son of Edmund Sweny, Sr. or an unknown brother, could have fathered Rosamond Prewtt's son. The fact that there are at least six identified male descendants (and likely many more when the four sons' vital reocrd gap years are considered) in the second and third generations after Edmund Sweny, Jr. provides a basis for presuming that these children are in the lines of Swenys who carried on the single SNP (FT55898) in distinct paternal lines to our modern-day Sweeneys, Swinneys and Whites. These Sweny children would have had to migrate west and south of the Tidewater region to be the progenitors of each of our modern-day Sweeney lines. More work needs to be done to uncover the records necessary to prove relationships back to the early Swenys. We will need to work forward in time from Edmund Sweney, Sr. and his family and backwards in time from the earliest known ancestors of our Swinney/Sweeney/White testers. With that in mind, here is a graphic showing the earliest known ancestors of each of our testers.
Once opened, clicking on the right side of the above chart will cycle the reader through the three family groups - Whites, Sweeneys and Pruitts. None of our testers has identified ancestors who lived in the 1600s with any degree of confidence. Historical evidence confirms that the Whites split with the Sweeneys in the mid-1700s with the birth of Moses Swinney's children and their formal or informal adoption by their White stepfather. Historical, STR and SNP evidence strongly suggests that the Pruitts split from the Sweeneys with the birth of Samuel Pruitt in 1700 or a generation or two earlier. However it happened, at least one non-parental event (NPE) must have occurred. The Sweeney/Swinney descendancy is more problematic since no common ancestor has been confirmed through historical records (which is likely the reason that no new SNP has been identified beyond their shared FT55898/FT48931). The purpose of these patrilineal trees is to provide a starting point for our historical research into finding the most recent common ancestor of these families. We can begin first by looking at records in the counties immediately around the Tidewater region and then moving outward towards the location of their earliest proven ancestors.
The Many Moses Swinneys/Sweneys/Sweeneys
One thing that stands out in the above chart is how many Moses Swinneys/Sweneys/Sweeneys are claimed to be the most distant known ancestor of the various Sweeney and White lines. It's well documented that Moses Swinney of Granville, N.C. was the progenitor of the White-surnamed individuals in our FT55898 cohort. However, there are a few other Moses Swinneys/Sweneys/Sweeneys who may be in the family lines of members of our group. Since these individuals were living around the same time and mostly in the same general area of Virginia, researchers often confuse them, ascribing parents, wives, children and immigration and migration patterns in an indiscriminate (and generally unsourced) manner. Here's an overview of what we know about five of these Moses Sweeneys/Swinneys/Sweneys:
- Moses Swinney of Granville Co., N.C. recorded two deeds in Edgecombe Co., N.C. in 1742 and 1744. He witnessed a deed in that county in 1738 which is the reason we say he was born before 1717 since he would have to have been 21 years of age to witness a deed. In 1754 Moses Swinney's estate documents were recorded in Granville Co., N.C. which suggests he died that year. In 1756 there is an apprentice bond for Dulaney Swinny indicating his father was Moses Swinny. In 1760 there is an apprentice bond for Littleberry Swinney, alias White, which indicates his mother was Margaret White.
- Moses Sweeney [I] of Pittsylvania Co., Va. signed his last will in 1784 and it was recorded on June 20, 1785. In his will he only specifically mentioned one of his children, James Semore Sweney, but later in the will says, "at the decease of my well-beloved wife, all my moveable property is to be evenly divided between my children...." Most of these Sweneys moved on to Monroe Co., Va. by the early 1800s; however, one male line from Moses's son John Sweney may have moved to Tennessee.
- Moses Sweeney [II] of Pittsylvania Co., Va. was born around 1753 according to his Revolutionary War pension application. Also from that application, we know that his father was John Sweeny who was likely born around 1730 and may have been the brother or cousin of Moses Sweeney [I] of Pittsylvania Co., Va. Moses also indicated in his pension application that he moved from Virginia to Jefferson Co., Tenn., then to Cincinnati and finally to Warren Co., Kentucky. At this time we do not know the name of Moses Swinney's mother or the names of any siblings or children.
- Moses Swinney of Amherst Co., Va. was recorded in several tax records, land grants and land sales in the 1770s and 1780s along with John and Joseph. Most of the descendants of this line likely moved on to Lincoln Co., Ky. around 1788 with their father.
- Moses Sweeny of Buckingham Co., Va. was born in Albemarle Co., Va. in 1756. Most of what we know about Moses comes from his pension application for service in the Revolutionary War. He said he was born in Amherst Co., Va., but we know Amherst County was not formed until 1761. Since he enlisted for service in Buckingham Co., Va. in 1776, we presume he was born in that part of Albemarle County that became Buckingham County in 1761. We believe Moses Sweeny lived in Buckingham County his entire life since he later appears on tax lists and census records from that county and filed his pension application in Buckingham County in 1832. He died on March 15, 1833 in Buckingham County according to most sources. At this time, we do not know of any Sweeney descendants in this Moses Sweeny line.
In the next section, we'll delve more deeply into these Moses Sweeneys and a few other Sweeneys in southern and western Virginia and Lincoln and Casey counties in Kentucky in an attempt to flesh out the relationships of these individuals to our testers.