Re: Sawdey name origin
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In reply to:
Re: Sawdey origin
resawd 11/07/06
Here's what I have been able to find about the Sawdey name:
1. It's most likely Cornish, and means "safe house."
2. The most usual spelling in Cornwall is "Sody"--when I visited there last year, I looked through the Devonshire and Cornwall telephone directory and came up with about 21 listings for the name--so it's still not very common.
3. The first Sawdey does appear to be the John Sawdey who was married (to Ann Holmes) in Boston in 1653. He was probably born in 1619 in the town of Landrake in Cornwall (it's about 10 miles from Plymouth). He was a "cordwainer," which is a shoemaker who was skilled enough to make good quality shoes (the English "cordwain" is a corruption of "cordovan" leather).
4. A son, also named John, fought in King Philip's war. He was apparently an aide to Col. William Turner; when Turner was killed in battle, his widow requested that John Sawdey be released from service to come home and take care of the colonel's estate.
5. John the son got into a bit of trouble because he was officially betrothed to one young woman but married another without annoucing the banns--he was subsequently fined for "fornication"--and he apparently also got hauled in for beating a relative of the aggrieved young lady.
6. The next generation of John Sawdeys was 13 in 1692 when he was arrested during the Andover, Massachusetts, witch hysteria. One of the accused witches said she had allowed Satan to assume her body in order to "touch" the boy--we can only guess what that entailed. Two wealthy citizens put up bail of 500 pounds (huge amount of money) to get the boy out of jail, and apparently he was never subsequently charged.
7. In the various documents of the day, I've seen the name spelled Sody, Soddy, Sadi, Sandi, Sawdy, Sawdey--and probably plenty of other ways as well (the 17th century wasn't big on uniform orthography).
One frustration is that I haven't been able to get past is to connect these early Sawdeys with the branches of the family in western New York of which I'm a part. My father was George W. Sawdey (1908-1988), son of Edward Carlos Sawdey and Nellie Snider. Anybody got some threads to tie these ends together?
--Michael R. Sawdey
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Re: Sawdey name origin
JAIME LININGER 5/27/11