This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: sawdey, Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/iRB.2ACE/798.1.1 Message Board Post: Interesting reading your reply to a previous post. Maybe we are looking for the same people. I have the following: The oldest person in my tree that I can find is based on a sentence from a county history book from Iowa. The sentence says: "The paternal grandfather of Mrs Parsons (Catherine Jane Sawdey, my great grand-aunt) was Benjamin Sawdey, a Welshman of Penn Yan, NY who served his country in the War of 1812." That is the total information that I have about him other than that he had a son named Elijah. Elijah was born in NY in 1805 and had similar law problems being arrested for disturbing the peace and assault in Penn Yan in 1825. He married a Catherine Briggs who was born somewhere in NY. His daughter Catherine Jane was born in NY in 1835. Sounds like the same people. I would love to learn more about Benjamin but its kind of difficult since there seems to be some unwritten law that says the one male child of every Sawdey family has to be named Benjamin.