Yost Swope Direct Descendants Brief Family History
This Surname is one of two alpha surnames to this website, [the other being HOWARD] .  American precense through our Swope  surname extends back to about 1720 arrival to Pennsylvania, although the ship record for arrival of the family has not been unearthed. Yost Swope, the line's progenitor, is credited with being the first SWOPE of any to arrive to America. This is not entirely true; his daughter arrived earlier with her husband, no doubt encouraging her father's emmigration to the new world, but as she had taken her husband's name; It is her father Yost who is credited with first Swope precense stature. The eight direct line females marrying into the Swope line from which we spring [this writer being 9th generation]   bring with them their own family histories detailed within these pages. It  is through the 6th generation Samuel McCurdy SWOPE marriage to Anna Kate "Annie"  STAIR that we gain Swope allied  and direct line American precense to its earliest point, 1710, and the arrival of mennonite refugees to the frontiers of now Lancaster County Pennsylvania in the form of their leader, Bishop Hans Herr, a  5th G Grandfather to Annie. It is through the 8th Generational marriage of SWOPE with HOWARD that we gain American precense to 1619 Jamestown and 1690s precense in  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through  HOWARD allied surnames involved with this second alpha surname [HOWARD] detailed in this website . 

Yost SWOPE arrived with his wife and several of his children. From his son Johannes "John" , the 2nd generation, through to and including his GGGG Grandson John Adam "John" Swope  the Swope males intermarried with women who  had Surname lines extending back to pre 1800 arrival to America. William Stair, father to The 6th Generation Swope wife  Anna Kate "Annie"  STAIR died when she was a toddler. His ascendancy is under research, but he is known to have been  born in Penna in 1830 and he  may belong within one of the many Stair family groups found present in the 18th century history of  York County Pennsylvania [probably , but not certainly alligned with Stoehr/Stehr and representing an Americanization of that name]. With the 7th Generation Swope marriage of James Donald SWOPE to Hazel Ruth "Ruth" REINECKE, the first post 1800   immigrant blood was added- that of Surname Reinecke. Ruth's father Otto Reinecke arrived 1868 but he married here to Ella Blanche MEALS , a 5th generation Pennsylvanian with American ascendancy deeply involved in the earliest history of Adams County, Pennsylvania. although Ruth [Reinecke] Swope herself is, with her daughter in law, the only female minus Ruth's daughter in law who was not born in Pennsylvania proper.

Otto Reinecke's infusion was entirely German in ascendancy, and in fact, the SWOPE wives are  entirely Germanic, with the sole exception of the 5th generational marriage of Adam Swope with Nancy Moore McCURDY.and the 8th generational addition of HOWARD.  Nancy Moore McCurdy's   great grandparent immigrants arrived at about the same time as Yost SWOPE and ca 1720. Through the two generations between Nancy's marriage to her 100% German American Swope husband and her Great grandparents arrival, we gain the only non German portions of the SWOPE allied lines , they being Scotch Irish and involved in southern Pennsylvania's settling. Adam and Nancy's son Samuel McCurdy SWOPE married Annie Kate Stair above mentioned, and the scotch irish infusion stops until the 8th generation marriage of SWOPE to HOWARD when a 100% british isle ascendant Lass married into the Swope family. Like Nancy Moore [McCurdy] Swope the HOWARD and allied surnames   lack any known Germans at all in the ascendancy, being part of our entirely  English, Irish and Scottish background. in the European portion of this tree. The last immigrant to arrive for our lines , Howard OR Swope allied, occured 49 years after its last most recent immigrant [Reinecke] and  in 1917 from Ireland in the form of Sarah Williamson, of the HOWARD ascendancy. Thus  the SWOPE / HOWARD combined lines have  one immigrant from the 20th century, one from the 19th, the majority from the 18th, and several of the 17th.
 

As for Yost Swope, the progenitor of our SWOPE line, his identity is often confused, and much information is provided to allow for understanding of the two forms in which he seems to occur.