[Hello! Because it contains everything I know on the subject, and may be of some interest to you, I am taking the liberty of copying to you a letter I just posted to a woman in Wiltshire, England.NS]

Although I am not directly aware of any antecedents from the area of Wiltshire. I'm new at genealogy and have done practically no original work on my own.
From what my sister and a few others in our family have found however I believe our family is primarily from around Prague, Czechoslovakia and that ouur surname has at times been spelled many ways, including
Swatton, Svaton and even Svaden.

This evening, after seeing your post, I started back through the extensive collection of pages I've notebooked from various family sources and did find a John Swaton who turned up in somebody's work on the Hibbert family in Salem, Massachusetts as the husband of Joan Hibbert, b.1676, d.1745. Others found that he probably was born in 1675 and died in 1739, which matches.

Now, the same worksheets show that Joan seems to have a grandfather named John Hibbert b. 1575 in St. Edmunds, Salisbury, Wilts, England (d.Est. 1622-1667)

Now I also have just turned up an old sheet that I found in May of last year while noodling with some new software our Church brough out about that time. It in fact shows several SWATTON names taken from the International Genealogogical Index of the British Isles. All are in Wiltshire, with the towns as shown. You probably already have them but here they are anyway:

Joseph SWATTON, Christening 24 Jan 1830, Bulford

Joseph SWATTON, Christening 22 Jun 1861, Preshute

Joseph SWATTON, Christening 28 May, 1855, Bulford

Joseph SWATTON, Christening 26 Jun, 1860, Bulford

Joseph SWATTON, Christening 25 Oct., 1832, Ogbourne Saint George

Going backward from this end, the furthest back we have been able to go is my
GGF, Anton SVATON b 4 Jan 1861, *Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, d 31 Jan, 1949, Los Angeles, California, and the name of his father which is felt to be Frank SVATON, no more information.

That's about it. Not much for all the activity of so many people, but I can't criticize since I have contributed nothing!

Good luck with your work,

Norm Swaton
Downey, Los Angeles, California

Joseph SWATON