Our Dutch Heritage: the Swaims

Nancy Ann Swaim’s Lines: Swaim, Larzelere, Teague, Pennington, Robbins, Wade, Nation, and Robins

Here is a clip of the South Pope Family Tree showing how the lines I will discuss in the next several posts link to Nancy Ann Swaim, Priscilla Adeline Vestal South’s grandmother, CE South’s great grandmother. Priscilla, child of Nancy Ann Swaim, was our Priscilla Adeline’s aunt.

Swaims 

 Thys Barentsen Swaim or Sweem (1621-1682) 8xggf Dutch Immigrant

Thys was the son of Barent Swaem/Sweem/Swaim (spellings vary) of Leerdam, Utrecht, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands, born in 1621. Since his father was Barent, he was Barentsen because Dutch had at that time patronymics like many other languages. Thys is often considered to be the Dutch equivalent of Matthew and Sytje would be Cindy. In Dutch “ee” would have a long a sound, hence Sweem is pronounced like “swaym.” It possibly was a variation of the word “swan.”  Thys’ family had been in Leerdam for a couple of generations at least. Utrecht is a state or province, and Zuid-Holland meant South Holland. Leerdam has been known for glass and crystal since the 1600s. By the 1990 Census there were an estimated 5200 Swaims in America. Thys is sometimes referred to on records as Thys Barentze Van Leerdam (from Leerdam). 

Thys married his second wife, Sytje Cornelius, about 1658 in Leerdam. The passenger list for the ship St. Jan Baptist in May,1661, shows Thys, wife and three children of Leerdam, arriving in New Amsterdam, which was to become New York under English rule three years after. Governor Peter Stuyvesant and other councilors at a meeting in 1661 were petitioned by nineteen men,Thys Barentsen among them, for lands on Staten Island to be laid out for a village. These nineteen men were the first European settlers on Staten Island. This settlement in the general vicinity of South Beach was called Old Town, or for the Dutch settlers, Oude Dorp (prounouced ooohduh dorp: don’t you just love that?) The settlers built a block house for refuge against Indian attacks. The area was populated by Indians, and wolves, deer, and other wildlife. There were no roads other than Indian paths. The land patents granted began to fill up the settlement, an important point in why it was necessary for sons of the families to move away. On a map of the settlement from the early 1660s, Thy’s family occupied as tenants a home in Block D. There are records for him in the Dutch Reformed Church and serving in the militia for the settlement. Thys was mentioned in court records in 1672 as present at the appraisal of a man’s estate. In 1673 he was among the selected magistrates for Staten Island. There are cattle marking records for Thys and his oldest son that are undated. He died in 1682. His estate was calculated in guilders and contained numerous horses and cattle, hogs, and quite a lot of personal items like pots and forks, etc. for a pioneering family; most impressive was that he left a home that he owned by his death and several other land holdings. Thys and Sytje’s last child was most likely Willem Swaim, though some researchers place him as the next to last child. I should note that when the English demanded that everyone give them a surname, at least one of Thys’ sons chose Thysen instead of Swaim. 

Staten Island or Staaten Eylandt as Henry Hudson Named It

Staten Island Map—Old Town (Oude Dorp) is now South Beach which is directly above the first large O in LOWER NEW YORK BAY. Notice how close  the southern tip of Staten Island was to Perth Amboy where Thomas South was constable for a short time.

The first European on the island was Henry Hudson in 1609. although other Europeans had seen it and included it on maps before that. Settlers came from Belguim in 1624, Walloons who did not remain long because the Indians, mostly Raritan, drove them away; they settled in Manhattan where there were already Dutch settlers. Dutch settlers came to Staten Island about 1637, and serious problems with the Indians ensued. Even though a “purchase” was agreed, there were constant problems between the settlers and Indians. Holland at this time period was very powerful and had reached a high degree accomplishment in manufacturing, sailing, trade, and learning. Their victory over Spain gave them great respect in Europe. After a number of attempts at settlement were thwarted by Indian problems, the first successful settlers were a group of Waldensians and Huguenots in 1658. They built the first church of any kind on Staten Island. 

Waldensians were ascetic Christians who were condemned by the established Catholic Church. They first appeared in Lyon, France, and spread across the Alps into Italy. Once the Protestant Reformation began, they were sometimes absorbed into other Protestant groups like the Huguenots, who were French Calvinist Protestants who left France to escape persecution. This settlement meant that from the beginning, settlement on Staten Island was not exclusively Dutch. The Waldensians who settled there came from a mountainous region outside Turin, Italy, which provided access to French speakers as well as Italians, so the inclusion of Huguenots was easier than if each group had each had only one language. The Waldensians’ religious beliefs were close to those of the Dutch Reformed Church, but Waldensians were more dedicated to a vow of poverty. Their sect went back to the 1100s when a merchant from Lyon, Peter Waldo, had the gospels translated for reading by the common man. This brought the established Church down on him and his followers. 

The Waldensians who settled Stony Brook had trials with the Indians, but also began to demonstrate that peace might be possible by treating the Indians with some kindness. Persecution in the Puritan colonies of New England drove some settlers to join the more tolerant Dutch settlers. Quakers also came to Staten Island in the early days of settlement. Intermarrying between all the groups on the small island was quite common and makes for interesting genealogical study. When the English took over in 1683, Staten Island was called Richmond County; the name Staten Island did not become official again until 1975.

Willem Tysen Sweem or Swaim (1677-1750) 7xggf We have 7 DNA matches with Willem and Marya Sweem as the common ancestors between the matches’ trees and ours.

William was born on Staten Island in 1677. He registered a cattle mark in 1703. He married Jannete and had a daughter Maryte baptized in 1705. It is believed that both mother and daughter died in the childbirth because there is a Dutch Reformed Church baptismal record of son Johannes listing him and second wife Marya Granger Larzelere. He is listed in 1715 as a member of the militia. In 1722 he sold some property that he likely never occupied in Freehold, NJ. In 1724 there is a deed record of his sale of 91 acres of land which also signed by his wife Mary. The family moved to Frederick County, Virginia, where William died in 1750. Frederick County was created from Orange County in 1743. A descendant says that family records place his death near the town of Winchester in Orange County, Virginia. 

  

 Johannes or John Swaim (1719-1803) 6xggf We have 46 DNA matches with John and Charity Teague Swaim as the common ancestors between the matches’ trees and ours.

John left Staten Island for Frederick County, Virginia where he married Charity Teague in 1744. He received a land grant in Frederick County in 1750, but by 1759 had moved to Rowan County, North Carolina where he obtained land in the Abbotts Creek area, now in Davidson County, NC. Some of the Teague family settled in the same area. In 1765 John and Charity sold their Abbotts Creek grant and moved to Yadkin County where a deed is recorded for him on Deep Creek in 1789 (then Surry County). The Moravians in North Carolina have record of a visit made to the Swaim home on Fox Nobbs on Deep Creek in 1772. There is a John Swaim shown in Revolutionary War rolls as a lieutenant. He is shown on the North Carolina 1790 census in Surry County and in 1800 in Stokes County; this may not signify a move on the part of the family but rather a change in the county designations. In 1801 there is a Stokes County deed which is actually John’s will; he leaves his property mainly to his son William Swaim with the stipulation that William care for him until his death. He also leaves land to his son-in-law Thomas Turner.  Charity must have died in 1801 since she is not mentioned nor does she sign this deed. He is buried in Stokes County.

 

William Swaim (1745-1827) 5xggf We have 11 DNA matches with William and Nancy Ann Robbins Swaim as the common ancestors between the matches’ trees and ours.

William Swaim was born in Frederick County, Virginia. He married Anna Nancy Robbins in 765 in Stokes County. He was given his father’s Stokes County land in 1801, but it is likely that he already farmed land in that county. Bible information says that the Swaims were Moravians. They had eleven children. In his will of 1811, William leaves his land and possessions except for land for his son Jonathan to his oldest son William.

After mulling this over and approaching the problem from a number of angles, I am going to leave the Swaims at this point. I am too puzzled by some discrepancies with our Nancy Ann Swaim to post her just now. That there is definitely someone who connects the Vestals and Swaims seems more than solid to me given the number of explained DNA matches we have with Swaims as the common ancestor between our tree and the matches’ trees. The families that connect to the Swaims like the Robbins, Nations, Robins, Teagues,etc. are all supported with numerous DNA matches as well, and it’s only the marriage of a Swaim and a Vestal that would ever get those lines connected to us as far as I can see.

The Swaims of North Carolina were numerous, located in a few NW counties of North Carolina, and, like the Vestals, seemed to choose the names for males from one or two names (John and William), making it harder to differentiate between them. One factor on the side of Nancy Ann Swaim is the fact that her first Vestal daughter was named Nancy, a common naming practice in those times. She is another case where if I had more time and resources, I believe I could untangle this tangle. I am going with the Swaim line as solid even if there are problems with Nancy Ann. Have a cup of Dutch chocolate and buy a bunch of tulips: we have some Hollander in us I'm sure

Resources

https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/b/o/d/Barbara-Y-Bodden/BOOK-0001/0009-0001.html The full text of The Swaim-Tysen family of Staten Island, New York, New Jersey, and southern states by J.F. Mullane, 1984.

This is a very well documented and informative piece on the Swaims.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89072988603;view=1up;seq=8 online version of Staten Island and Its People: A History 1609-1929 by Charles Leng and William Davis, published 1930. Gives a good understanding of early Staten Island, New York.

https://archive.org/details/earlyhistoryofst00kolf/page/n13 online version of Early History of Staten Island by Cornelius Kolff published in 1918.

https://books.google.com/books?id=kz2F52yfz1MC&pg=PA362&lpg=PA362&dq=map+stony+brook+on+staten+island&source=bl&ots=MAEwwUKFJt&sig=ACfU3U0Zuxk1jXOnMBT6L-hIcTxny7amhg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfu8mJxMPgAhVnCTQIHV7QCUEQ6AEwD3oECBQQAQ#v=onepage&q=stony%20brook&f=false online version of Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, New York, Volume 1 by Ira Morris published in 1898.