Susanna Frost

Various web Trees give the birth date and place for Susanna Dawson, the wife of Philip Frost (1755-1825), as (11 Dec) 1755 or as 1760 at Bodham, or as 1760 at Norwich. None yet scrutinized attach or reference a source document to support those assignments. Other Trees cite, with source support, her baptism date as 11 Dec 1857 at Swanton Novers, her parents being John and Mary Dawson.

Without unequivocal documentation or insight from family archives it is often difficult to be sure that correct data are assigned to individuals in family trees. Assignments below are made with a reasonable degree of confidence based on archive records, the individual’s family associates, geography and time frame, and by cross-reference to web Trees.

Searches on children born to John and Mary Dawson identified two such families in appropriate time and geography, one at Swanton Novers, and one at Swanton Morley. These villages are respectively about 10 km SW and 25 km SSW of Bodham. Records for a daughter Susanna were found only for the Swanton Novers Dawson family, where Susanna’s siblings were identified as James (bap 23 Jan 1759), William (bap 25 Oct 1761), Ann (bap 15 Apr 1762), John (bap 9 Oct 1763), Joseph (bap 30 Mar 1766), and Martha (bap 25 Oct 1769).

Susanna’s father, John Dawson was born about 1827 and was baptized to parents John and Martha Dawson at the Parish Church of St Edmunds, Swanton Novers, on 12 Sep 1833 [research by Diana Spelman]; his siblings Susanna (b c1730) and George (b c1733) were baptized there on the same day. A third sibling, William, was born c1736. John married Mary Mussett (sometimes transcribed as Mabers) on 31 Oct 1857 at Swanton Novers, where twelve years later he was buried on 16 Jan 1769. Mary Mussett was baptized on 27 Apr 1740 at Swanton Novers to parents William and Mary (nee Howell?). Possible siblings, also baptized at Swanton Novers, were: - Ann (bap 6 Apr 1733), John (bap 29 Oct 1742) and Lydia c1746. Mary Dawson was buried at Swanton Novers on 1 Mar 1772.