Two seemingly unrelated Bevan families connect with our family tree. The first is the Bevan family of Newton Nottage. Watkin Bevan, born 1796 in Newton Nottage, married Mary Powell, sister of our great great grandfather Rees Powell of Ty Draw, Pyle.
The other family, that of Thomas Bevan,
of Llwynypia Farm, Ystradyfodwg, connects to our Rhondda Davies family.
Thomas Bevan, born in 1801, was the great great great grandfather of
two fellow-genealogists, Jill Muir, née Knight, and Robert Wilkins, Jill via Thomas' daughter Elizabeth, Robert via another daughter, Margaret. Yet another of Thomas' daughters, Sarah Bevan married William Davies,
born in 1827, the grandson of William Davies of Cwmsaerbren, so it is
through this Bevan family that Jill's, Robert's and our trees connect.
Thomas Bevan and his wife Jennet Thomas,
were farming Gilfach Orfydd in Llandyfodwg in the 1830's at the same
time as our great great grandparents Richard and Gwenllian Davies
were farming neighbouring Brynchwyth, and the two families were in the
same congregation at St.Tydwg's church, where they both baptised
children in the mid-1830's. Then both families left Llandyfodwg at
about the same time, heading in opposite directions - by 1841 the
Davieses were on the coastal plain at Candleston in Merthyr Mawr, and
the Bevans were in the Rhondda Fawr at Llwynypia Farm. Thomas and
Jennet raised a family of ten children in Llwynypia, where the three
daughters already referred to met and married their three Davies
husbands (from three different Davies families, I should add). See also Other Davies Families.
