James Swanton was born in County Cork in about 1813. His father was John Swanton. James Swanton was the occupier of the farm at Coppeen in 1865 and in 1868, when he was the informant of the respective deaths of his father, John Swanton and Johanna Swanton, who may have been either his mother or his aunt.
James Swanton married Catherine McCarthy (Cate Carty) on February 23,1841 in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Enniskeane, County Cork. They were married by Father J. A. O’Sullivan. The witnesses to their marriage were Jeremiah Carty and Jeremiah Murphy. No parents’ names were recorded.
Catherine McCarthy was born in 1814 and died on September 22,1864 in Coppeen, County Cork. Cate was only 50 years old when she died of mortification of the arm, the result of an accident. The time between the accident and her death was 4 days. This was long before antibiotics were discovered, and minor flesh wounds often became infected, resulting in death. Her death was reported by the coroner.
James Swanton and Cate Carty Swanton had four children:
Cornelius and Johanna Swanton McCarthy had a daughter, Ellen, who was born in Boston in 1877. Ellen married Patrick Colleran, a horse and buggy driver for Pickwick Ale in Boston and they had twelve children:
Three of these children, Marion, Margaret and Mildred were still alive as of 2001.