Free Welshmen ca. 900 A.D. had to prove a nine-generation genealogy in order to qualify for land ownership, so Wales is a country with a cultural interest in genealogy. That doesn’t mean that genealogy is a cinch in Wales. The Welsh used patronymics into the twentieth century, meaning that family names changed with each generation. In addition, until a resurgence in national and cultural identity in modern times, many Welsh were called, and even identified themselves, as English.
Long words and unusual pronunciations abound in the Welsh language
Grammar and pronunciation in the Welsh language don’t facilitate genealogical research. There’s an abundance of double letters that are sounded not at all as they look, such as “dd” that is sounded as “th” in the word the, not as a “d.” The village with the longest name in the British Isles is in Wales, and pronouncing it is a tongue twister.
The name game in Welsh genealogy
Family names were not fixed through the generations in Wales. They varied according to the name of the father of the family, as was done in Scandinavian countries. In Welsh patronymics, mab (or map) means “son of” in Welsh. In time the “m” was dropped but the “ap” remained and further evolved into P or B at the beginning of a surname. For example, the modern surname Bowen was formed by the B of mab (son) and the name Owen, thus, it is a derivative of “son of Owen.” The Welsh were reluctant to give up their system of patronymics and didn’t conform to using a permanent surname until the nineteenth century, some persisting with the patronymics into the early twentieth century, until pressure from civil authorities brought about adoption of a permanent surname.
The most common Welsh surnames are: Davies (derived from St. David, patron saint of Wales), Evans (from the son of Evan), Jones (from the English name John), Thomas (saint’s name), and Williams (believed to be from Guillaume, French for “William” and used after the Conquest of 1066).
Online sites start in the Old World and go global
The UK and Ireland Genealogy site GENUKI organizes its searches by historic counties, which is very useful when tracing lines through the generations. Welsh counties were reorganized in 1974 and 1996. This remarkable site comprises pages on topics from Archives and Libraries to Societies, including sections on Welsh cemeteries and census. The Emigration and Immigration portion includes notes on settlements in Australia, North America, and Patagonia in South America.
The old counties of Wales are: Anglesey, Breconshire, Caernarvonshire, Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Glamorgan, Merionethshire, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire, Pembrokeshire, Radnorshire.
Cymdeithas Madog is the Welsh Studies Institute in North America Inc., a nonprofit organization whose goal is to introduce North Americans to the language of Wales. Its name comes from Madog ab Owain Gwynedd, a Welsh prince who supposedly sailed to America in the twelfth century. The site includes links to sources of books, music, and a wealth of Welsh materials.
Cyndi’s List provides links to articles and websites devoted to explaining Welsh culture, history, and genealogy. Categories range from Birth, Marriage, Death to Wills & Probate.
Genealogylinks offers databases for cemetery lists, marriages, surnames, and passenger lists. The site lists dozens of links to Welsh resources in Great Britain and North America.
UK Genealogy opens with names and address of the major public archives and libraries in Wales, which would come in handy for anyone traveling to Wales to do genealogy. There are also lists of history and genealogy societies, lookup exchanges, and links to census records on fee-based ancestry.com and other related sites.
Welsh immigration to the United States
During the 1790s there was an influx of immigrants from Wales due to crop failures, crowded conditions, and political repression. The Welsh were also a part of the massive nineteenth-century migration from Great Britain via Liverpool, England. The Welsh tended to settle in places where they could find work using the skills they had and where they could congregate with other Welsh families. For a great many, that meant communities involved in coal mining and quarrying. In Wales, the men had worked in copper, gold, and coal mines and slate quarries. In the United States, favored destinations were the mines in Pennsylvania and Ohio and the rock quarries of New York, Vermont and Maine. Religion also played a part in migration patterns. Baptist, Quaker, and Mormon Welsh settled in like minded communities. There was a large immigration to Idaho, specifically Malad City, a Mormon settlement. About 20 percent of the population there claims Welsh ancestry. Immigration trends have been plotted by Epodunk in “Welsh Ancestry Maps.”
Welsh immigration to Canada
Multicultural Canada describes Welsh migration as minimal until the early twentieth century. Early Welsh explorers of Canada included Thomas Button, who mapped the west coast of Hudson Bay in 1613, and Thomas James, for whom James Bay was named. A group of Welshmen migrated to Nova Scotia as Loyalists during the 1780s, and their descendants still populate Shelburne County. Large migrations from Wales to British North America were discouraged for social, political, and economic reasons. Mining endeavors such as the Acadia Iron Works in Nova Scotia lured some Welshmen during the mid 1800s, but the Welsh tended to immigrate to well established settlements in the United States. Boom times in the Canadian Northwest enticed Welshmen to Manitoba to escape the economic depression in Wales in the 1870s-80s. A coordinated effort between the Canadian government, the Allan shipping line, and the Canadian Pacific Railway streamlined the immigration process. Ships ran weekly between England and Canada. The South Wales Atlantic Steam Ship Company offered service from Cardiff to North America.
Flux in migration; remigration from South America to Canada
A resurgence of mining operations in Wales slowed migration to Canada in the 1880s. In the early twentieth century, Welsh families settled in Ponoka, Alberta, and nearby Wood River. Annual Welsh festivals were held on March 1, St. David’s Day, patron saint of Wales. A Welsh colony in Argentina was given assistance to transplant itself to Saltcoats, Saskatchewan, in 1902-1904. About 200 people made the move.
Welsh immigrants lumped in with others from Great Britain
Canadian statistics estimate that approximately 67,000 immigrants came from Wales, but the exact number is hard to calculate as emigrants from anywhere in Great Britain were categorized as “English.” The majority immigrated 1901-05, with subsequent large migrations after the world wars.
Sources:
- “Migration, Arrival, and Settlement,” online Multicultural Canada, The Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples/Welsh, undated. Downloaded 6 May 2011.
- “Wales,” , by charitable trust GENUKI, 9 May 2011. Downloaded10 May 2011.
- “Welsh Ancestry Maps,” online , from 2000 Census, U.S. Census Bureau, 2004. Downloaded 6 May 2011.
- “Yr Wyddor Gymraeg/The Welsh Alphabet,” online Cymdeithas Madog, 12 March 2000. Dowwnloaded 10 May 2011.
Denise Larson - Denise Larson is an author, editor, and freelance writer, mostly of history and genealogy, and a hobbyist in gardening and healthy ...
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