Swinnerton History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
England

The illustrious surname Swinnerton is classified as a habitation surname, which was originally derived from a place-name, and is one form of surname belonging to a broader group called hereditary surnames. Habitation names were derived from pre-existing names for towns, villages, parishes, or farmsteads. Topographic names, form the other broad category of surnames that was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree.

Other local names are derived from the names of houses, manors, estates, regions, and entire counties. As a general rule, the greater the distance between an individual and their homeland, the larger the territory they were named after. For example, a person who only moved to another parish would be known by the name of their original village, while people who migrated to a different country were often known by the name of a region or country from which they came. Swinnerton is a place-name from the place-name Swynnerton, a village and civil parish in Staffordshire. The family was an "ancient knightly family of Staffordshire, descended from Sir Roger de Swynnerton, lord of the manor of Swynnerton during the reign of Edward I." 1 Two other records were found of the family about the same time: Robert de Swinnerton, Staffordshire; and John de Swynnerton, Derbyshire. 2

Early Origins of the Swinnerton family

The surname Swinnerton was first found in Staffordshire where they held a family seat as Lords of Swinnerton, and were at a very early period, after the Norman Conquest in 1066, of knightly and baronial degree. Count Alanus, Duke of Bretegne, and the nephew of William the Conqueror held Swinnerton.

Barrow in Cheshire was an ancient family seat at one time. "[Barrow] was given by Ranulph, Earl of Chester, to his nephew William de Albini, Earl of Arundel. The two manors were at a later period possessed by the Despencers, and, after their attainder, were granted by Edward III. to Sir Roger de Swinerton, an heiress of whose family brought them, in marriage, to Sir John Savage, who was knighted by Henry V. at the battle of Agincourt." 3

Swynnerton Hall is an 18th-century country mansion house which was held by the family for centuries. One of the earliest records of this family was Thomas Swynnerton of Swynnerton Hall and Hilton Hall, Staffordshire, father of Humphrey Swynnerton (ca. 1516-1562), English politician and landholder.

Early History of the Swinnerton family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Swinnerton research. Another 160 words (11 lines of text) covering the years 1322, 1340, 1349, 1361, 1391, 1392, 1427, 1449, 1450, 1501, 1515, 1519, 1554, 1563, 1601, 1602, 1609, 1611, 1612 and 1616 are included under the topic Early Swinnerton History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Swinnerton Spelling Variations

Since the Old and Middle English languages lacked definite spelling rules, Breton surnames have many spelling variations. Latin and French, which were the official court languages, were also influential on the spelling of surnames. The spelling of surnames was rarely consistent in medieval times, and scribes and church officials recorded names as they sounded rather than adhering to any specific spelling rules. Therefore, it was common to find the same individual referred to with different spellings of their surname in the ancient chronicles. Moreover, a large number of foreign names were brought into England after the Norman Conquest, which accelerated and accentuated the alterations to the spelling of various surnames. The name has been spelled Swinnerton, Swinerton, Swinnertone, Swinertone and others.

Early Notables of the Swinnerton family

Notable of this family during the Middle Ages was

Thomas Swinnerton (died 1554), was an English "Protestant divine, son of Robert Swinnerton, [who] came of a Staffordshire family, and was born probably at Swinnerton in that county. He is said to have...

Swinnerton migration to the United States +

Some of the first immigrants to cross the Atlantic and come to North America carried the name Swinnerton, or a variant listed above:

Swinnerton Settlers in United States in the 17th Century

Job Swinnerton who settled in Salem, Massachusetts in 1640

Swinnerton Settlers in United States in the 19th Century

John Swinnerton, aged 40, who landed in New York in 1812 4

Contemporary Notables of the name Swinnerton (post 1700) +

Frank Swinnerton, Author, Novelist, and Critic

Citations +

Lower, Mark Anthony, Patronymica Britannica, A Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom. London: John Russel Smith, 1860. Print.
Bardsley, C.W, A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames: With Special American Instances. Wiltshire: Heraldry Today, 1901. Print. (ISBN 0-900455-44-6)
Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England. Institute of Historical Research, 1848, Print.
Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)