There were many other Powells of course, but here we shall concentrate on
those Powell families
which, for several generations, lived in the same area of south-west
Glamorgan as our ancestral
Powell line. I have identified three other Powell lines in the area
around Bridgend during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth
centuries. One of these families, like our Powell ancestors, were
nearly all farmers, and I suspect that we shall eventually succeed in
demonstrating that they were related to our ancestral Powells. A second
family, again a land-owning farming family, first appears in the parish
of Llangynwyd in the 16th century, then disappears before the 18th -
there is evidence to suggest that they, too, may be connected to our
ancestral Powell line - more research is underway on this.
The third family were for the most part carpenters or in some
way associated with the timber business. For convenience, I refer to
the first of these families as the "St. Brides Minor Powells" because
it is in this parish that I have found the earliest record - the
marriage of a David Powell in 1764; the second as the "Llangynwyd
Powells" because that is where all the records I have found to date
exist; and I refer to the third family as the Blue Street Powells,
because it is in Blue Street, Pyle, that this family lived for several
generations.
The St.Brides
Minor Powells
I have
mentioned David Powell above, but I have so far found little
information about him, except that he and his wife Mary had at least
three children, all baptised at St.Brides Church, St.Brides
Minor. The only one of his children whose descendants I have been able
to trace to date is his son Jenkin Powell,
farmer, who was born in St.Brides Minor in 1768, and who married
Margary Maddock (see also Maddock Family
Connections) and farmed
at Pen y Fai, Newcastle. Their sons all became farmers:
William's children
inter-married with the Davies family and Margam Powells, and Evan's
family grew up with the family of Edward Powell of neighbouring Slade
Farm (now in the hands of one of our DAVIES family!) and West Farm, St.
Brides Major, and I am still unravelling interconnections here (Edward
was the brother of our great great grandfather, Rees Powell).
Thomas' great great grandson, Charles
Powell, now a registered user of this website,
tells me
that his father William POWELL was born at Grove Farm, Newton Nottage,
which for half a century was the home of Thomas POWELL, brother of our
great grandfather Rees POWELL. So the St.Brides Minor POWELLs and
Margam POWELLs look increasingly like branches of the same family but
we have yet to prove it.
The Llangynwyd
Powells
Most of the
evidence on this family is extracted from a
Margam Manorial Survey of 1570 - thanks to research by Allen
Blethyn
- and from the gravestone inscriptions in the churchyard of St.Cynwyd,
Llangynwyd. Thomas ap Howell, later known as Thomas Powell, is shown in
1570 as Steward, for Sir Rees Mansell, of the Manor of Hafod y Porth,
where he is shown holding three freehold tenements and two
forest land tenements. By 1588, his son Anthony Powell, who has taken
over as Steward of the Manor, has nineteen tenements. In 1656, A
descendant, Thomas Powell, married Rachel Middleton, daughter of Sir
Henry Middleton of Middleton Hall, Carmarthenshire. Part of the
marriage settlement was Llwdarth Mill, which had been in the hands of a
certain Rees Powell in 1630. Much more research is required here, but
it seems likely that eventually we shall be able to establish
connections between this family and our ancestral Powell line
in Llantwit-juxta-Neath and also to the family of Rees Powell of
Llanharan.
The Blue Street Powells
Another Thomas Powell - or
Powel - is the first individual recorded in the parish register of Pyle
and Kenfig for this Powell family. Thomas Powel
married a certain Mary Syms in Pyle in 1752, and of their
eight children, two boys - Lewis and Thomas - survived to continue the
line., in which the names Lewis, Richard and David
are used regularly, distinguishing it from the other lines where these
names never appear. Through the generations, this
family were carpenters and, for the most part, remained in the parish
of Pyle and Kenfig. Again, more research is required here, but no
connections have yet been indicated between this family and our
ancestral lines.
