My Fore-mothers from England

In honor of March being Women's History Month, I am going to find the first women ancestors in each of my lines that I have any knowledge of...though one only goes back as far as great-grandparents. The other grandparents have given me a lot of ancestors to consider.

But who were the eldest grandmothers?

The Swasey line came down to my father's mother, Ada Swasey Rogers, from New England, and here I will share some of the Fore-mothers who immigrated to the American colonies.

In order to keep track of generations, I'll just review that I consider myself generation 3 (with children and grandchildren being the 2nd and 1st generations)
So my parents are 4), my grandmother Ada Swasey Rogers is 5), her parent 6 etc.  Let's go back to the first settlers.

12) Mary Jiggles (or Jeggles) married 12) Joseph (Immigrant) Swasey (the eldest of the family who came to the American colonies)

12) Mary Jiggles Swasey was born in 1631 in Suffolk, England and died in 1709 in Salem, Essex County, Massacusetts.

Is she the Swasey family matriarch?

12) Mary Jiggles and 12) Joseph Swasey's son, (11) Joseph II, married a woman named 11) Elizabeth Lambert.  Her mother was 12) Preserved Gaskoyne, who was born in 1638-9, in Salem MA, and married in Salem, MA to 12) John Lambert.

12) Preserved Gaskoyne Lambert had a mother named 13) Sarah Parker Gaskoyne (Gaskill) who lived from 1605-1691.  However I highly doubt that she was born in Salem, MA, because it wasn't setttled until 1626 by English.

Sarah Parker 1605-1691

So now the earliest fore-mother is 13) Sarah Parker Gaskoyne (Gaskill)...who did live until 1691 in Salem, MA.

So still on my Swasey tree branches, go down a few generations, to the son of  11) Joseph II Swasey and 11) Elizabeth Lambert.  This would be 10) Samuel Swasey who married 10) Ammi Ayers, 1687-1783.  Her line goes back now, with her mother 11) Amy Cowell Sherburn Faber Ayers (1655-1736) who married 3 times before giving birth to 10) Ammi Ayers.  And they lived in Portsmouth, Rockingham County, New Hampshire.  Of course it was before these were official counties or states.

11) Amy Cowell's mother was 12) Agnes Harvey Cowell,  born in 1620 in New Hampton, England, and died in Dec, 1681 in Cambridge, Suffolk, Massachusetts, according to several Ancestry Family trees.  But her will is available, written also in the year of her death in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where her children were born.  


So today I've explored some of the elder women of the Swasey family who first came to America.  

13) Sarah Parker Gaskoyne (Gaskill) 1605-1691, or 13 generations before my grandchildren.

12) Agnes Harvey Cowell, 1620-1681, 12 generations ago.

I'm pretty certain that both these women came to America from England.