Glamorgan
Family History
As our grandmother and all
her ancestors were born in Glamorgan, and as our grandfather was the
first of his line to be born outside the county, it is not surprising
that it was here that our research started, nor that more than half of
the approximately 8000 individuals now contained in the database were
born in Glamorgan.
Around the end of the 17th
century, when we find the earliest records of our
ancestors, long before extensive coal-mining in the Rhondda and
elsewhere, and the accompanying vast industrial
expansion, propelled the population of Glamorgan to
well over a million inhabitants, our ancestors - all of them farmers -
lived in an essentially rural county with a population of less than
100,000 souls. Our ancestors were concentrated in two areas:
The Rhondda
Valleys - a beautiful, hilly, wooded, sparsely-populated part
of the remote hinterland of Glamorgan, through which flowed two rivers
- the Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach; where man's presence was
limited to a few isolated villages and scattered sheep farms, and
The Neath Valley -
although a little closer to the relatively bright lights of the coastal
towns of Neath and Swansea, nonetheless secluded and sparsely
populated, with a sprinkling of hamlets and farms along the banks of
the river Neath.
The
eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries were to see a migration of our ancestors from these
two areas. Some of the Neath Valley Powells moved to the nearby towns
of Neath and Swansea, but our direct Powell ancestors, who remained in
farming, moved over the following generations via Baglan and Margam to
the parish of Pyle & Kenfig. Similarly, although many of their
siblings remained in the Rhondda, our Davies ancestors moved first to
the Ogmore Valley then down to the coastal plain around the Ogmore
estuary, to the parish of Merthyr Mawr. So, by the mid-nineteenth
century, our ancestors from both the Davies and Powell lines, were all
living in the coastal parishes between Bridgend and the
Bristol Channel. Throughout this period, the Powell and Davies
sons and daughters married, almost exclusively, the sons and daughters
of other local farming families, so many of the descendants of our
early ancestors bore names like Jones, Morgan, Jenkins,
Evans, Rees, Maddock, or Marendaz. Indeed, by the end of the
nineteenth century, a large proportion of the farms in that area were
in the hands of Powell or Davies descendants. The same may be said of
the Loveluck family, with whom our ancestors had multiple connections,
and this is clearly illustrated on James Loveluck's website.
Our databases overlap and James and I have decided to coordinate our
efforts in order to illustrate all these interconnections without
duplicating too much material.
Principle Glamorgan Resources
and Research
Aids
It was to the Glamorgan Family
History Society that I
turned when I started to research my Family History in
2002. Although not living in the UK, and therefore unable to
attend regular meetings, I found that, as a member, I was able
to benefit from free search services via e-mail (particular thanks here
to Kathleen Rhys!), and I quickly amassed a large collection of their
publications and CD-ROMs, containing the results of the huge amount of
transcription work performed by members over the last few years -
censuses, parish registers, monumental inscriptions, etc., with the
help of which I found that I made great progress in tracing my
Glamorgan roots. The GFHS later introduced an on-line Forum. Early on,
I became aware of the existence of the Rootsweb Glamorgan
Mailing List, to
which I subscribed, and quickly realised that it is
one of the most active genealogy mailing lists, with a number
of very knowledgeable, very experienced, and extremely helpful
people, who have been an invaluable aid to my research. Although I
subscribed to many other Mailing Lists for short periods during the
last three years, the "Glam List" is the only one to which I
have maintained my subscription. With a number
of "listers" I have established regular contact on
matters of common interest (really too many to mention, but my
many thanks in particular to Allen Blethyn, Jill Muir and Glyn
Davies for all their help). A number of websites have become
vital aids to my Glamorgan research, notably
I have also found a wealth of useful
material at the National
Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, though I have still to
make the journey there; fortunately they have a good on-line search
facility on the Internet. The Glamorgan Record Office has also proved an invaluable aid to
research in the county, but an on-site visit is essential to really
benefit from all their treasures. I have spent several very
fruitful days there during visits to the UK.
