The Truth about Welsh Surname ORIGINS
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ส.ค. 2022
- Welsh surnames have an interesting history. A Professional Genealogist explains how you got yours.
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my family tree has Lloyd, Roberts, Williams, Hughes and Jones. My family come from north west Wales
Fascinating. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed! :D
Hello, an Ellis here. Trying to learn more about my heritage. Was always told we were of Scots/Irish/Norse background, associated with the MacPherson Clan, and came to USA by way of Atlantic provinces of Canada to Boston area. Keep coming back to Welsh origins with the surname Ellis, but have never once been told any of a Welsh heritage, so not sure.
Interesting! There certainly are Welsh Ellis'. It might be a case of just having to do the genealogy research back across the ocean. Sometimes when we're told about our heritage, people highlight the parts that are most important or meaningful to them, rather than the full range of that heritage.
This was great! Just imagine all of the people who spent money on those items! Plus the money that has been made by selling them!
Thanks! I know right. I hope this video encourages people get at their real ancestors, rather than myths about distant royal links.
Fascinating! David Morgan is a family name for me as well. My Morgan's immigrated to Canada from Ireland in the 1830's (ish). I did hear a saying though that "All Morgans' came from Wales" though. :)
Interesting. Yeah Morgan is an old Welsh-language name. Maybe they stopped over in Ireland for a while before continuing on their journey? That'd be interesting to find out.
@@GenealCymru I suspect there would have been a generation or two (or 3) in Ireland before Canada. Canadian records list them as Irish. Next I will be researching the Methodist religion in Ireland to see if I can get some helpful hints...we are not quite sure where in Ireland they came from but County Clare or Cork are the main clues. Cheers!
@little knowledge podcast,...
more on the royal morgan family...
the new *welsh historic castles, houses, manors....lands... youtube channel
I'm descended from an Irish Morgan, too. I don't have much info to go on apart from answers given to a census taker in 1870. Good luck with your research!
Before my father passed he told me my grandfather and grandmother were both from Wales. My surname being Richards and grandmother's maiden name is Lewis. I did some digging and i got really nowhere and gave up.
Very interesting. If you ever wanted to try again, there's plenty of videos on the channel about how to look through the Welsh genealogy records.
The Welsh Patrynomic(sp?) Society in Jefferson Texas has been researching the genealogy of most Welsh surnames since the 1960's and has a library of reference material for genealogy if anyone is interested. We found out alot while researching my father's side located in America anything overseas was difficult.
Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
@@GenealCymru we were very fortunate to have our family bible with all the births deaths and marriages going back to Moses Bowen that came over to America in the 1690's but boy! We really had trouble finding out anything from before and thankfully we were able to find help through them. Maybe you can find them useful as well. I really love the researching. Fantastic career choice you've chosen I wish you all the best and I have subscribed to hear more from your channel.
Wow, that's amazing having such an old and detailed family Bible. Making that jump back to Wales is so hard for so many people in the diaspora. I'm lucky cause my mum was born in Wales, so that was never a challenge I had to deal with. I sometimes trace from Wales to the US and that can be tough.
@@GenealCymru We were Very fortunate! Being Bowens the line is easy to trace because almost all of the Bowen descendents in America trace back to Moses ( at least the ones I have come across) there's also an annual gathering of Bowens ( I've never been but have a distant cousin that has) We've learned a lot about the history through all of the family stories. My father was born in Alabama but grew up in Tennessee.We even have photos going back to his grandfather James Y. Bowen ( to give perspective my father was born in 1920.) I do wish my mother's line had been so easy. She was half Native American my aunt and I spent over a year tracing her lines as a 100 yr birthday gift to my maternal grandmother and we are both addicted to digging up dead people as my aunt Melba would say...
That’s really cool. My partner is from Capel Hendre which is right next to Llandybie. I am from Port Talbot but my surname is Jones and mothers maiden name is Morgan so both long standing welsh names. Great video once again.
Very cool. I love when people with Llandybie connections share them here. I've only ever driven through to see the church gates cause Jacob Davies who I mention briefly in the video, actually made them. And it was there that my Grampie first told me about Ifan Dafdd y Gof. Glad you enjoyed! :)
I'm a Jones, with roots in Northern Wales, near Flint. Noswaith dda
Oh oh !! my Mums , Mum . was Phyllis Ivy Davis and she married a Edgar Davies . Edgar was born in 1905 and Phyllis i believe 1905 or 1906 in Cardiff i believe
So from ,both sides we have Davies .
Their children were Pamela( my Mum) and Jennifer ( mums sister) both born in Cardiff
Not sure where they all were from ,as so impossible to trace but my Mums Mum ended up in Cardiff Wales, and then the rest of us all too .
We live in Canada now . My Dad was Graham Watts he went to Gladstone High in Cardiff , his sisters June and Eira . Dad was born in 1935 and Mum ,Pamela born in 1936 in Cardiff
I wish we could see and trace them all too.
My Grandpa Evan Davies was a gatekeeper at Cardiff Castle
We could be related to you 🫠
Interesting video tyou
Very cool. Gatekeeper at Cardiff castle is an interesting job. I went there last time we went to Wales and had a great time there. I don't think we'd be related. The closest my ancestors got to Cardiff was Neath, but glad to see you enjoyed the video! :D
My grandfather (Harding Thomas) and his family are originally from Llandybie, he moved across to Bridgend in Glamorganshire in the 1940’s. His family were farmers, like some people he moved to the industrial area of Glamorgan for better work opportunities and money.
Cool. I wonder if your Thomas' are related to my Thomas', also from Llandybie (mostly at Dryslwynfach, Pistill, & Waunllan Farms). My research doesn't usually go as recent as people alive in the 1940s, so I wouldn't have your grandfather in my tree. My Llandybie family ended up in Morriston for the same reasons as yours did in Bridgend.
Thomas here too. From Montgomeryshire, Edward Thomas married a Powys in that area in the late 1700s. It's my brick wall generation right now.
Another very good and interesting post.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed :D
I always do. Thanks
Born and raised in cwmbran wales.
I’m also a Davies, my mothers father name.
But my nans maiden name is Williams
What’s your story you have a North American accent but still call your gramps grampie, was you raised in wales?
Very cool. 2 of my Grampie's great grandparents were Williamses :). My mum was born outside of Swansea and, on the Welsh side of my family, I'm the first born outside of Wales.
@@GenealCymru ahh that’s really cool I’m currently the first in my direct family to move outside of wales
I currently live in California. It’s a shame as there seems to be no welsh community out here
Is welsh don’t leave the shire much
Yeah growing up I didn't know any other Welsh people but my family. My Grampie always used to be so excited when he saw the red dragon on someone's car or something. He'd flag them down to talk to.
You haven't mentioned my surname yet but this playlist has explained why I have the same first name as my father, grand father, great grand father and great great grand father. I can't go back any further than that. My Welsh family had a tendency to avoid the National Census - which doesn't help either. I now live close to Wales in a town that was in Wales at one point.
Very cool :) I'm working on a video now about one of the reasons why people didn't show up in the census.
me too.,..not heard my surname.... not Evans is it...😂❤
Father Ieuan Llewelym Evans❤
This is the first I have seen of your channel, and I'll be watching more. I'm taking another run at my Welsh 2x great grandfather, trying to knock down his brick wall. Decided I needed to learn more about researching my Welsh ancestors.
Welcome! I'm glad you found your way here :). Definitely check out some of the other videos where I go more into tips on how to do the research. I find Welsh research really fun, but I find a lot of people struggle because they focus too much on names, and especially surnames, and quickly find out that they're not always the most helpful thing when it comes to Wales. Good luck on your research!
@@GenealCymru I will certainly be watching more of your videos. Been working on a rather intriguing mystery. My 2x ggf was named Griffith Williams, born about 1822 in Wales, came to Schuylkill County Pennsylvania sometime before 1842 and mined coal. There was another Griffith Williams in the county. Born in Wales about the same time. Had a dickens of a time figuring which records went to which Griffith, but finally got it. I'm still stuck on my 2x, but the other one came with his parents and siblings in 1842. Come to find out, I have DNA matches to the OTHER Griffith Williams. My working theory is that their respective fathers were brothers, and both named sons after their father. I found the family in the 1841 Wales census living in Breconshire. The kids in the family were born in Breconshire, but the parents were not. I choose to look at the bright side that there is ONE place in Wales I can rule out. LOL
That's so cool! And it makes sense with how people generally migrate and follow their relatives and then with the WElsh naming patterns it's really not surprising that they have the same name haha. Sounds like it took a lot of work. Good on you for figuring it out!
Thanks for this! Maybe you could tackle the "Welsh tartan" travesty at some time too? ;)
Great idea. I'll write that one in my list! Thanks! Kinda related, I have one that I wanna work on soon about the Traditional Welsh Costume. I finally found some historical photos of women in the costume that I can use in the videos and can't wait.
Hmmm ... I watched a UK 'Who Do you Think You Are?' about a Welsh comedian named Greg Davies. The genealogists traced his ancestry way back to the Welsh royalty/leader, Owain Gwynedd, the first Prince of Wales. He met a large number of cousins also related to the Prince. The narrator explained that because the Welsh was such a small population pool in the past many/most people would have been related to royalty/leaders.
I do see people say pretty often that many/most people are related to royalty. But I don't see any of those people actually demonstrate it to be true. Most of the time they reference it being about numbers and statistics, but marriage and coupling doesn't work by math rules, it works by cultural rules. People tended to marry within their own social class and even in day to day life, people tended to spend time with others of their own class. In my own research, I've found cross-class marriages and births to be very uncommon and much less so than even people marrying within their own family.
@@GenealCymru I know what you mean and I agree with you. However, people do 'rise and fall'. The elites were often that through their battle for power and they could also fall from that position. In my particular research on my Welsh lines so far I have found none of that. On my English-French- Norman line I have found that rise and fall. Often it was to do with the division of property - too many children for too little property and wealth to go around.
My mother was a Davis and I ran her family tree back several generations. There were a lot of Johns and Thomases in that lot.
Nice! :)
I've got a keyring fob with my family "Coat of Arms", Hopkins. I knew it was bogus. A well meaning friend probably gave it to me. "I saw this and thought of you" sort of thing. I know where the name Hopkin came from and once again it's a forename. I too am descended from a Davies, the Reverend Thomas Davies supposedly from the parish of Talley in Carmarthenshire. His wife is a descendant of Eistyn ap Gwrgant I think was the last prince of Glamorgan. I wasn't looking for royalty or anything like that but it soon struck me that there are probably hundreds of thousands of people the same as me. 😂
Thanks for another really interesting video.
It's really nice to see you working through the videos. I really appreciate it and I'm glad you're enjoying them :D. Yeah an I think that's part of why these coat of arms and mythologies of certain names continue on, because they're easy to turn into trinkets and souvenirs. We have so many Davies trinkets in my family aha
@@GenealCymru I haven't watch all of your videos yet I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have watched so far.👍 I can feel the genealogy bug coming on. I shall fight hard to resist.😁
Don't resist! Join us :D hehe But if you do, start with all the free resources first and go through the free trials for all the paid websites :)
I know this is an older post but… I’m gonna leave a comment anyway. 😊 The way you pronounce Davies (DAVIS) is how we (I in the Southern US) pronounce Dav-EES. I keep getting thrown 🫤 as to how its to be pronounced. So here in the South (NC) we say “Daveys” as a bunch of “Davey Joneses” (singing Monkees 🎶 🐒) but “Davis” is said of course like Jefferson DAVIS (the 1st & ONLY Confederate President). 😁Sorry, my Southern is showing…lol. But seriously ya’ll pronounce it BOTH the SAME WAY? Just trying to understand, Thanks. ✌🏻
Edit: stayed til the end…I have JONES!!! And they married SMITHs!! Oh joy!! 😂
You have perfect timing! I just made a short video about this exact topic. See it here: th-cam.com/users/shortsYFPr63cSt3U
Ive been seeing a lot of "Welsh Surnames" but I wish I could find more info about just flat out having your surname *being* Welsh
The only info I have is my dad was born and his family was born and raised, in Newfoundland
Probably the best place for that is Google. There are lots of sites that give little descriptions of possible surname origins. I prefer surnameDB and there's some encyclopedias on Google Books that can be useful. Sometimes it's hard to sift through the baby-name page nonsense.
Morgan , Griffiths , all from west wales and Anglesey . Bet we are all connected somehow xxx
Very cool. So far I've only found like 2 ancestors in Anglesey. Their father was not very nice so the two brothers left their home near Lampeter and went to live with their uncle, who was the Rector of Aberffraw. This was in the 1880s.
@@GenealCymru I have a Griffiths Griffiths from Anglesey , probably a miner from around that date . He had a daughter Sarah Sofia Griffiths born 1908 ish xxx
@@GenealCymru I have a Griffiths Griffiths from Anglesey , probably a miner from around that date . He had a daughter Sarah Sofia Griffiths born 1908 ish xxx
Oo Sophia is an interesting name. I imagine that was a fun one to follow in the records. I love those really uncommon names (assuming it's uncommon in Anglesey) they make for some fun research.
@@GenealCymru she was named after her mother who died giving birth she was Sarah Sophia too xxx
Great vid.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!
I suspected those family crests were bogus.
Thanks for sharing your amazing tree, I have a Davis in my tree too she was my great grandmother and she married my g grandfather a Lewis from Maesteg Glamorgan and they lived in Ohio and PA.
Glad you enjoyed. You're very lucky to know where your great grandparents were from in Wales. That's awesome
My birth sir name is Jones still trying to learn about it
My surname is Blevins, but I know next to nothing about it. I'm somewhat unsure if it comes from Blaiddyn or a corruption of Bevan though I think it comes from the former. Part of the difficulty is that basically everyone from that side has been wiped out, my branch is in California but last I knew most of them came from Illinois, Oklahoma, and basically every state before the branches lost touch with each other. I even have relatives in the Philippines or at least may have at one point but the whole business is complicated.
Very interesting. I haven't encountered Blevins before, but there's also Bleddyn which is an old Welsh name.
@@GenealCymru I believe that it comes from Bleddyn or some variation of that name, only heavily anglicized once they came over to America. Oddly enough, we have a y chromosome e-v13 which is somewhat common in Wales but found in low amounts in England itself and is most common in the Balkans and Dark Age Welsh nobility.
One more surname. I have a Cary/Carey/Carew ancestor from near Bristol, Somersetshire who immigrated to the United States Plymouth Colony in 1634. I’m not sure if he’s related to the Cary from Surrey. Lore has it the three sons fought over their father’s land/estate and one left for Plymouth Colony.
Very cool. I hope your research helps you figure out the family lore. I love it when the stories we tell about our family and the records meet up (and often contradict each other).
@@GenealCymru Your videos have been a tremendous help to me in trying to sort through it all. ❤️
Yep I'm on a mission to find out.. my Dad Bentley Davis.. but spelled Davies on his birth certificate.. but he spelled it Davis..
Interesting. I have only 2 instances of Davies' turning to Davis' in my tree. All but one are people who went to the USA and then there is one group of siblings who stayed in Wales, but spent time in England, and they took on the name Davis.
My first name is Meredith, which I think is anglicized "Merydudd" or something like that. My last ancestor with Meredith as a surname was a 4 greats grandfather. Everyone thinks Meredith is a girl's name now, but it has been a man's name in my family for about 150 years that I know of. Question: are any of the origins of the name you can search on the internet real?
Good question. I tend to take them with a grain of salt. I'm working on a video now about surnames and a lot of the info is coming from the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. You may be able to access it through the library. From what I've seen of it, it's more thoroughly researched than the many baby name websites that usually come up when searching for this kind of info hehe.
a tip too look out for
is
ap ...son of
ferch,,,daughter of
also many many shared names,,,,
like david, thomas, john.... sometimes over 3 generations or more...
being that there are welsh brut tywysogion and many many pedigree family trees...
it is not impossible, that welsh family is decendants of the welsh princes & nobility...
however ,
look for norman names like de clare, etc
Yes, some people will be descended from noble families, but a shared surname is not what proves that connection. And those old pedigrees aren't exactly trustworthy documents. A lot went into their making than just facts of people's relationships, they were often about laying claim to legitimacy or power by fabricating connections to the historical nobility. So they must always be double checked. And very much agreed with paying attention to the ap/ferch system.
What can you tell me about the last name which I know is Welch Pinyan Thank you so much for any help I was adopted so this is all I really get to have.. nothing really personal ❤much just the ode time story that you could tell please, please!
Interesting. I looked into it and Pinyan is a variation of Beynon, which is one of the patronymic surnames which comes from "ab Einon" or "son of Einon." So basically one of your ancestors way way back was named Einon and his children took on his first name as their surname.
It seems they were not David but actually Dafydd, as on the tombstone.
Good eye. If I remember right, you're referring to Evan and his son, Jacob. They were living in that time period where people took on multiple names. So all of Evan's records refer to him as Evan David, including his signature. Jacob goes by Davies all his life, also including his signature, until his tombstone, which is under the name Dafydd like you mention.
I like to know anything about the howells
Howell works in the same way as Davies does. There's not really any general information about "the Howells" that applies to any one family. It really takes doing genealogy research to learn about your particular Howell family, where they came from, and what they did across the past centuries.
Im a Roberts but have no idea how. Ive never been able to find my great grandfather, William Cecil Roberts. Was told he "worked on a barge in Louisiana". 2 DNA sites and ive NEVER been able to find ANYTHING!!!
Oh no. That's frustrating. The best way to use DNA is to put it through Ancestry and then sort through your matches. At some point you should be able to find another descendant of William, his parents, or grandparents. I haven't done much DNA work so it's not really my area of expertise.
I think it is pronounced Llan die be
Thanks for your suggestion. I'm assuming you're referring to Llandybie? I've talked with a couple different people from South Wales and listened to some videos and the pronunciation they all say is Llan-duh-BEE-uh