The channel has just had its 1 Year Anniversary, so feel free to hang out and watch some of my other 30 or so videos on Welsh History, Genealogy, and Culture. If you want to get started on your own Family History research, check out the 1-week Free Trial through FindMyPast using my affiliate link: tidd.ly/3QmPMrk Check out my other vids on Welsh naming patterns. The Truth about YOUR Welsh Surname: th-cam.com/video/0a6eognNi-M/w-d-xo.html Explaining Welsh First Names: th-cam.com/video/SMPNF8V-140/w-d-xo.html
Hey mate, my father's side of the family were Welsh, I was born in NZ. They all passed before I could remember them. We are Foley's which apparently is Irish? Are there Welsh Foley's? New sub. Cheers
@@footrot17 Hey, there very well could be. I haven't encountered any in my research yet. Surname DB says this about the history of Foley: "This interesting surname is an Anglicized form of the Old Gaelic "O'Foghladha". The Gaelic prefix "O" indicates "male descendant of", plus the personal byname "Foghladha" meaning pirate or plunderer. This great sept originated in the southern Munster County of Waterford, and from there spread to Counties Cork and Kerry, where the name is particularly widespread, and ranks among the sixty most numerous surnames in Ireland." But who knows, maybe they stopped over in Wales before getting to NZ! :)
@@GenealCymru pirate or plunderer! lol I know at least 3 generations were coal miners, so yeah they probably did move about. Thanks a lot for replying mate. Much appreciated.
Swedish surnames often are taken from nature, such as names of trees, herbs and flowers. Also names like Berg = Mountain, Sjö= Lake, Skog = Forest, Blom = Flower and all sorts of combination of such nature denominations. I haven't seen this in any other country. What can I say, we love nature!🇸🇪
That's very cool. I've seen some people with Lake as their surname in Wales, but yeah it's not super common. A first name that we have is Olwen, which means something like white footprint, but represents bunches of white clover flowers that an old goddess made when she walked through the forest.
Welsh first names likewise quite commonly are taken from nature. Eira - Snow, Eirlys - Snow Drop, Heulwen - Sunshine, Llinos - Linnet etc but nearly always names for females.
Thank you for this very interesting video. There is an increasing emergence of channels such as yours spreading awarenesses of my precious little country! It is most encouraging to discover people around the world are finding an interest in this part of the UK that often gets overlooked. It may be a small country, but it has a rich history connected to ancient Britain! Best wishes in developing an increased following. You have one more subscriber.💖
Thanks for your kind message! I'm glad you enjoyed. Yeah I'm hoping to fill the gap in the 18th to the present history of Wales that like never gets any attention. I find mostly it's medieval history that gets done and I think our more recent ancestors deserve some love too!
My 3rd great grandfather came to America from WALES, JAMES C. EVANS so here I am in the USA, stories of him speaking Welsh with other welshmen in Eureka Nevada in the late 1800s intrigue me as well as many other stories
I was very surprised to learn there was a good sized Welsh community in the Berkeley/Oakland California area, many were Welsh-speaking. My great grandparents went back to Wales from PA, had two sons, then returned to the US. They were pretty determined to maintain their Welshness, spoke Welsh at home, family members lived nearby and my mom remembers the Aunties chattering primarily in Welsh. There were Eisteddfod here, various places, at least intermittently, one regularly in Malad Idaho. Her dad wouldn’t speak it a lot but i have a cassette of him singing a children’s song about a chicken. Mom understands some words, at this point I might understand more than her though I have trouble putting more than one sentence together at a time.
@@daffyduck4267 My great great grandmother was like that. The story goes that she pulled the boys out of the mines when their dad was killed and they sang at various functions as a family foursome. When she was bedridden before she died she didn’t talk for i think a month. One day she sat up and sang Aberystwyth, all verses in Cymraeg of course, lay back and didn’t talk again. Śhe died a few days later. I wish I’d had someone speaking Welsh while I was growing up. It’s a lot harder to learn on your own with an app!!
My Grandpa's welsh surname has sadly come to the end of the line. My uncle only had daughters and they both are taking new surnames when they get married.
I was glad to see this. Someone in my fam tree had the name Llewelyn, or Llewellyn. When someone immigrated to the US, it got changed, simplified, to "Lewallen," and i have *always* wished it was spelled the original Welsh way. Subscribed, and am checking out the channel for the first time today! Thx!
At the same time it's pretty clever changing to Lewallen because it likely saves a lot of the original pronunciation in whatever place they ended up. I figure that's why a lot of Davies' who went to the Americas ended up as Davis', for the sake of the pronunciation.
I am a Llewellyn and my dads family is from south Wales. I was born and live in England , but I always spell out my surname on the phone ( and pronounce it the English way. without the double LL sound) as otherwise I get some very funny spelling. Shakespeare in Henry the V spelt it Fluellen !
@philllewellyn6464 I am too. Born in England my nan's dad was Welsh from Tenby south Wales.I've had some bizarre spelling of my name and always have to spell it out but I wouldn't change it for the world and am very proud of my Welsh heritage.
This video fortuitously came into my feed! Both of my maternal grandparents were from Abergavenny but only my grandmother had Welsh lineage. I now know why the family tree starts to get muddled as I try to get past my great-great grandparents - Davies kept marrying Davies and it’s hard to know if it’s the “right Davies”! Thank-you for this wonderful history lesson.
I have some other videos that can help you with all the common names. I'm also fortunate to have at least 5 Davies families that I'm descended from haha, but you may want to look at my video on place names and on Welsh first names/naming patterns if you're looking for any support as you work on your tree :)
I got messed up with a birth certificate, thinking a Jones married a Jones... but it turns out the mother was a Davies. It would appear daddy registered the baby's birth too late, so in order to avoid the fine he gave the wrong birth date. She was born in January, so I was told weather probably was the reason. He also didn't seem to understand the concept of maiden name so he listed his wife as being a Jones rather than Davies.
Thank you for speaking slowly and deliberately. It helps absorb the info. I am forwarding this to a Williams who speaks Gaelic, and a Morgan, ex long ago of Wales.
Thanks. That's what I was going for and I'm glad i helped. I figured there'd also be a lot of people who have a different accent from me watching and so the slower pace would help.
My maternal grandfather's name was Evans, I researched his line and found out they came to America from Cardigan in the early 1800's. They were Calvinist brick makers who sailed down the Ohio River from Pennsylvania on rafts, settling in Ohio to build the first railroads there. Thank you for your excellent content and fantastic delivery ❤
My mother was Evans. Her ancestors came to America in 1759. They sailed from Dublin to the Philadelphia port. They then traveled down to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia where my family still lives. My husband's family is also pure Welsh--Griffith.
The patronymic system of naming held on in Scandinavia (and still does in Iceland) up until fairly recently historically. One of the amusing things about my own ancestry is that my grandmother had older siblings with different last names. When they came to this country, her father gave his name as Magnus Erlandson. His children who arrived with him were thus "Magnusson." But everyone of his children born in this country had Erlandson as their last name.
Different names on coming to America, is the story in my family. I am not sure but among five brothers and a sister, one took the name of a rich uncle, another a patinomic of his father, another ( rumored to be his mother's child) after the name meaning "golden". Their mother used a name connected to military service, because it came with a pension. BUT My favorite story is how the Dutch, when forced to take last names by the Spainish crown, made up as silly of a name as they could think of, for example a name meaning "bornaked". 😁
Lucky!! Had that been two or three generations earlier it could’ve been a lot harder to untangle!! Half of my kids are related to every other Hillendahl on the planet. When his father‘s family came a few generations prior they didn’t know what to do with Heiligentoggen (sp?). I guess Ellis Island was familiar with the “dahl” suffix and went that direction!
My Grandmother was the same way. Both of her parents and her older sisters were all born in Sweden, so they had their father's first name as their last name. She was born in Iowa. So she had her father's last name as her last name ..
Most people do not realize that in Samoa there are a lot of people with the last name Pritchard. They are Welsh descendants. I would love to see you do a follow-up on the Pritchards
Very cool! No plans for more surname videos at the moment, but I could look into Welsh migration to Samoa for a video on that. I'll write it in my notes.
I have known for years that my Jones ancestral surname was Welsh. What a nice surprise to see your channel and learn that my Williams, James, Edwards and Thomas surnames are likely Welsh.
Do you know what part of whales that Jones originated from? My mother-in-law’s is a Jones from Northeastern Wales, about 30 miles south of Liverpool. There seems to be a lot of Joneses around that area.
my last name is Czuba. we are from southern Poland. but I enjoyed your video, very informative and interesting. I would love to go to visit Wales. I lived in Kent, southern England for 2 years when I was a lad, because my father had a job in Sandwich circa 1973, I was 5! would love to visit Britain again, but especially the country and Wales ! thx
I am half Welsh and have many family in Sandwich! Both Kent/South-East England and Wales are incredibly beautiful when you know where to look, especially Wales! Very interesting info Andrew thanks for sharing! :)
Wales might be small country but they have big heart wonderful people so friendly pleasure to visited them respect from you're celtic cousins of Scotland
My Thomas and Davis ancestors settled in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia in the early to mid 1700's. Amazing how a country as small as Wales had such a huge impact by its diaspora worldwide.
All of britain par the Highlands were once Welsh speaking Britons. This island was conquered over and over again and the remainder of everybody is in modern day Wales
I have Watkins, Lewis and I think Hughes that came to Wilkes-Barre & Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s, I *think* my Rees’ & Griffiths stayed mostly in Wales. Davis and Reynolds’s in 1700s, in a circle where Kentucky/Tennessee/Virginia meet. Several Reynolds’s pop up in my Ancestry DNA matches. There are also Fraleys, Smiths and a few Edens.
Do you know anything about the surname Yancey? We have a county and a city named after Us in North Carolina but the name is lost in time from the 1600s it goes nowhere but the rumor is, they came over from Wales.
Thanks for the video, really interesting to read the comments from all over the world, with the same surname I'm Welsh or Cymro, Cymru is Wales, Wales was invented for us, its a very rich place historically and our beautiful language. I'm live in South Wales but my name Griffiths comes from Denbighshire North Wales.
Agreed. Welsh history is fascinating. It is such an important part of global history that I don't think gets talked about enough. Most of the time it's medieval history that gets covered, but the modern period is where Wales really shines in my opinion.
Shw mai Dai, My Grandfather was a proud South Walian 'Silure' as he refered to the Roman title of tribalism. Born and raised in Pen Y graig atop the Rhondda. He could recount our family lineage to six centuries! My father being the eldest of his offspring was the 1st male in our family not to be born in Cyymru. I found your video here most interesting and will certainly watch more. Cantre Diolch!
My great-grandmother gave her sons Evans as middle names, after her mother-in-law's maiden name. I think this was a way to honor her heritage. It was fun finding out I had Welsh roots.
Nancy Adamou. I get tired of US tv scripts saying that the name EVAN is Irish. America is obsessed with Irish. Evan and Evans is Welsh. The name Roberts can be found all over Wales. The US Chief Supreme Court justice, John Roberts, has a Welsh name. It would be interesting to check his ancestry.
My Grandmother Jones was a war bride, came to Canada after WW2 - she was from Pontypool. Trajically she died before I was born and just recently I was thinking of exploring her roots. Thanks for this, really interesting info.
I hope you do find out about her history. Glad you enjoyed the video. I've got some research coming up that's taking me (in the records) to Pontypool too-I just found out a relative was a vicar there.
With a population over around 3.5 million and knowing where your grandmother came from in Wales should help but there are a lot of Jones’s in Wales. Pob lwc!
All my ancestors came to the U.S. before the American revolution and settled in Appalachia. There is a county is Kentucky named "Davies". I always wondered about the spelling--now I understand.
Mine too. Often people came in groups, were related and even moved to new areas in the New World as a group. My Mom's family moved to Georgia as a group of related families to Ga from SC. People tended to move west and south as new lands opened up. Dad's went west. All started out in either Va. or Penn.
I was born in Owensboro, Kentucky which is in Daviess County. Owen is another Welsh name. We had Welsh farmers here who came down the Ohio River on flat boats from Pennsylvania and Maryland and raised sheep 🐑 and we are known for our barbecued mutton. You can eat it at Moonlight BBQ or Old Hickory if you’re ever in town.
Most of the settlers in Appalachia were English,Scottish and Welsh.The census records of the Appalachian states from the 19th century have their names and where they were from by it.
Very cool. And I totally agree. I ultimately started the channel because there's just not much info on Wales on TH-cam especially beyond Medieval history. Glad you enjoyed!
This is so interesting! Thank you for taking the time to put this together. This actually sheds a tiny bit of light on my family history. Thanks again!
That's awesome! I'm glad you found the video useful. I've got lots of other Welsh history and genealogy videos on the channel that you might enjoy also and that go into more specific topics like migration and different examples of how people actually got their surnames.
Most of the common Welsh surnames are well represented in Jamaica, such as Morgan Griffiths Cadogan Meredith Howell/Powell Jones Davies/Davis Llewellyn Evans Vaughan. There are a large amount of Thomas and Williams too, but those are possibly from all over Britain and Ireland.
Yeah. Wales played a big role in British imperialism and slavery which is a big part of why those names are so common in Jamaica. There's definitely videos in the works about all that. If you know any black Jamaicans who are looking for some support doing their family history, I can do some work free of charge. I have some experience with the Jamaican records from doing a loved one's tree. There's a couple Jamaican genealogy Facebook groups that I'm in that are probably the friendliest and most helpful groups on Facebook.
@@GenealCymru Oh! Thanks for the information. The two persons I know personally their male ancestors came dacades after slavery was abolished, one Meredith and one Griffiths. I can ask if they are interested.
@@AnthonyEvelyn Aa okay. Interesting. The tree that I did went back to early to mid-1800s South Trelawney/North Manchester area. I've got a bit of a one-place study going for one of the communities there, trying to collect as many records as I can.
@@GenealCymru I am a black American Morgan who is married to a Welsh Morgan and we live in Mid Wales. I know that some of the Welsh who immigrated to The USA were Quakers and abolitionists. Is there anything in your research that would suggest newly freed black people might have taken the surname of some of these Welsh abolitionists? There's certainly a lot of Jones, Thomas, Davis, Williams, and Evans. It's all so fascinating! My husband has managed to trace his father's family just a bit further back than you did (1680s).
I am glad I stumbled upon this. It explains quite a bit about my family name. My last name is spelled Rees. Three of my grandparents came from Wales. My paternal grandparents last name was spelled Rhys. My understanding is my grandfather changed his six children's spelling of our last name as he felt it was more American.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing! Yeah Rhys had quite the number of spelling variations. One thing to remember when it comes to even the early 1800s is that many people didn't know how to read or write. So often it would be someone else writing down their name and so they would just learn from that. But definitely Anglicising names would be advantageous for migrants to the US.
I wonder if we have a connection because my fatherline is Preece which take the p out and you got Reece which could be another variation but who knows.. every welsh person I spoke to always says you cant get a more welsh name than preece and whenever I visit powys I always get a weird feeling and I can see, hear or feel the spirits in the castle their.
They say that things change with time and I always say....."They TRY to change." When my parents married, both sides of the family were more than annoyed. They BOTH said they had "Married outside their race", even though both sides were white as milk. My mother was a Campbell and her mother was a Jones. My father was a Reynolds and his mother was a Pool..... possibly Dutch. Reynolds has become a common enough English name in the last thousand years because of the Norman Conquest, without being a Norman name. Reynolds is the Anglicized version of Reginwald, from Switzerland. It turns out that a third of Duke William's army in 1066 were Swiss and Burgundian mercenaries. After the invasion, the new Reynolds tribe was parked on the Welsh frontier at Devon and it is from there that all the Reynolds' in the world originated.
My paternal grandmother was a Reynolds ! From Tres Hebert in the Rhonda valley. I know I butchered the spellings.She immigrated to Canada when she was 16 in the 30's. I still have her steamer trunk she used for the boat ride. Thanks for the info on our name. Hello cousin ! From 🇨🇦❤🌈
@@thekatt... My mom’s…. Father was born in Treherbert. His mothers Rees/Griffiths side moved there from Llandybie Carmarthenshire. They seemed to have 2-3 little homes in a row, various family members moved through! Small world, I’ve never seen Treherbert on a board even!
The “outside their race” wasn’t so long ago! I was put up for adoption in part because my father wasn’t a nice Welsh boy from the Oakland/Berkeley Welsh community, in spite of his Davis surname!! After I met my mom my cousin told me it was a good thing I hadn’t found her when our grandfather was alive-I had a lot of red in my brown hair and moss green eyes; apparently he had quite the Irish, umm, feeling!
It might interest you that Cromwell was a name that was known in Wales. After the Civil War and the actions of Oliver Cromwell the Welsh connection changed their name to Williams. A friend was able to trace her ancestry back and this is what she found.
@@taffyducks544 He had distant Welsh ancestry due to his great-great grandfather being Welsh, but this ancestor moved to England and married an Englishwoman and took her surname. So he is mostly English
@@fyrdman2185 wouldn't be mostly, very difficult to now show the strength of any particular ancestry where he would be concerned. I never meant to claim he wasn't English, just highlighting his ancestral ties with other nations.
My mother's maiden name was Bebel. She was from Cardiff and I grew up in the States but know nothing of it's origins because of her passing at a young age. I thank you for the knowledge..
Wow this was quite detailed. I appreciate you splitting the difference between the hereditary and the patronymic naming conventions. I'm heading to Wales soon and a lot of these names pop up at the little town that we are looking at because we have family origins into town of Lanelly Hill. Thanks for the video and keep up the good stuff
Fascinating video! Reese from Nebraska here! My Great Grandad and his folks immigrated from Pembroke and Pill in 1872, but I would love to track down more records from over seas! This vid earned a sub from me!
Glad you enjoyed! Definitely check out some of my other videos that talk more about how to do Welsh Genealogy. The one on the Top Welsh Record Sets might be a good place to start :). 1872 is a really good immigration date because they'll have been in multiple census' by that point which is always helpful!
Interesting and informative video, thank you! My family emigrated from Wales to the USA in the late 1600's. My ancestors first arrived in Pennsylvania then moved west to the Appalachian Mountains where they later began a slow migration south on what is known today as the Appalachian trail. My closest ancestors settled in Northwestern South Carolina. My DNA shows that my ancestors came to Wales from the Saxony region of modern-day Germany just after the Romans abandoned their conquest in Wales. I was fortunate to learn so much about my ancestors so far back in the past.
I'm glad you enjoyed! It seems like your ancestors followed a path that a lot of Welsh people took at that time. There's so many who went to Pennsylvania. I don't know much about Appalachia, but I'm sure they would have had connections with others who took that route.
@@GenealCymru Yes, it seems the Griffith family settled along the Trail in every current state that the Trail goes through, all the way to its end down in or near Alabama. There is a place near where I live in South Carolina called Welsh Neck which began as settlement of Welsh Baptist people from Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1737. It was the result of Robert Johnson, the royal governor of the province of South Carolina, granting the first Welsh settlers ten thousand acres in northeastern South Carolina during 1730 that eventually became known as the Welsh Tract.
Wow that's really interesting. Every time I see Welsh Baptists in Pennsylvania, I always wonder if some of them were my ancestors too. There's quite a few who I know went to the US but who I haven't been able to find in the records.
There are a lot of Welsh surnames in West Virginia. That’s because mining was the big industry there. A lot of Welsh miners emigrated there to seek employment in a job they already knew. My husband’s Welsh relatives were all miners in NE Wales. They were Joneses.
At 2:04 on your list of names are many of my relatives from the 1600s or earlyer Llewelyn Griffith and my 7th great grandfather John Griffith second wife was a widow of Morgan Rhydderch her name was Jane and after Morgans death her son names were Abel Morgan and Enoch Morgan very neet.
Very cool. That page comes from a book of pedigrees by Lucy Ellen Lloyd Theakston. I haven't found any connections to the nobility in my family, other than through marriage, so none of my ancestors ever show up in those pedigree books. It's too bad. Although, I think I've seen Abel and Enoch Morgan throughout my research. There's a family of Abels that are kinda parallel to my family and some other families I research.
Fascinating content, clearly and soothingly presented. Thank you (Canada?). I just love this stuff! We recently had an exhibition in my area of South East London on generations of British emigrants including the original Patagonian Welsh communities. It presented a thought-provoking juxtaposition of the experience of my own parents’ challenging arrival in cold 1960s London from the West African colonies, and the British poor starting afresh in turn of the 20th Century Australia, Canada…A surprisingly similar experience of triumph over adversity. From a Nigerian Cockney. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👍🏿🇬🇧🇳🇬🇨🇦🏴
Thank you, for posting the video. I knew I had some Welsh roots, but never got around to seeing from where my ancestors hailed. My maternal grandmothers side has the strongest line; Dawson, from Ruabon, Debingshire, Wales, & Meredith, which traces back to Trelawynd, Rhyl, Wales to circa 1700. I think there is another line out of Caerwys. Hitting the subscribe button, now.
My great grandfather came from Swansea Wales. He was a Williams as well, but I've had trouble tracking the family back into Wales. Thanks for the info.
No problem. Glad you found the video helpful. I've got plenty more videos focussed on how to do Welsh research that can help if you get back to figuring out your great grandfather's line.
I was hoping you'd give a specific example of Jones, since it was displayed right in the center. My 2x Greats immigrated from Wales in 1850 and we're Jones', Thomas,' and Davies. They settled in Emporia KS, which was a big Welsh area. I've found their farm and other landmarks in Cardiganshire, and LOVED it!
There's not really anything to say about Jones beyond what is already in the video. It's a patronymic surname like the ones I explain in the video and it originates from the name John. Beyond that it's like any other Welsh surname.
Thank you. Very informative. My 6th great-grandfather Jacob Voyles (Voiles) in 1718 was the first of his line to be born in Denbighshire, Wales. His father, Charles Victor Voyles (Voiles) b. 1685 had immigrated from France.
Been trying to put together my Father's Mother side Voyles. I have hit a blank finding my Grandmother Emma Jane Voyles married Blaine William Pope. I never got to meet her. She died when I was young and I can't find where she is buried. Any help from Voyles family line would be greatly appreciated.
Another source of the name Voyle comes from the Welsh word, ‘Foel’ which translates as, ‘Bald’ or, ‘Bare’. So a bald man or a man who owned owned bare ground may well have been given the name, ‘Foel’ which mutated into, ‘Voyle’ over the years.
Ancestors: Reese Hughes b. 1620 Wales and John Michael Jones b. 1484 Wales. Still working on them gathering more information. I think there are a few more in my tree but can't recall them all at this minute. Glad I found this video. Thank you
This really helps me a lot. I had traced my Lewis line back to Narberth, Pembrokeshire, Wales around 1682 or so then they came to American around the same time as William Penn and helped settle modern-day Pennsylvania. They later went to Virginia then lastly to Kentucky. This video helps answer so questions of some earlier documentation I had found with the long Welsh names similar to the ones presented in the video and now I know they may be valid and may be able to take my Lewis line back another few hundred years. Thanks.
@@annarussell3751 Took me 25 years to get past Virginia. When they burned the courthouses during the Civil War did not help. But tell him to look for great Uncles where the trail goes cold found my 8th GGfather living with his older brother but I had not added that brother so took me a while to really connect them.
If you are a British Lewis you will have two choices as to its origin. English - it would have started centuries ago in Rome, moved to Germany as Ludwig, from there to France as Clovis where it changed again to Louis and finally to England as Lewis. Welsh - it would have been Llewellyn until Wales was conquered and things started to change. When records were kept for tax or other purposes, the scribe would have been English and he would not have been able to say, let alone write Llewellyn. But he would have known the name Lewis and that’s what gradually was written down. Some Llewellyn’s then used the new version and became Lewis.
Jones here , all family members from KY . Prior to 1850-60s ? Was Virginia and still miners ! 😁 Jones have been miners in my family forever, idk exact years. But everyone, all the Jones males are miners.
My mother was a Thomas before she married. She was extremely proud of that name. Her grandmother's maiden name was Rhys, she was a cook at Dale castle in Wales. I visited near there in 2006. I took my nephew so he would remember his Welsh roots. I started to teach myself Welsh but found it too difficult without a person to converse with & things Like Babbel don't have Welsh as an option. My father's family is also Welsh. One of his ancestors ran mining for the civil war governor of Ohio, A miner of Welsh origins.
Yeah learning a language without some place to use it is very very difficult. If you can find Welsh language music that you like, that's a really good place for your language skills to live in the absence of other people around you to talk with. Also very cool story about the mining ancestors. They shared a similar experience to a lot of Welsh migrants to the US.
Being of Welsh descent, I must say that I found your program very interesting. My surname Williams was mentioned, and then you mentioned Davies and Davis. Davis was my mother's maiden name. We always thought they were Scotch-Irish, but evidently there's more Welsh blood in the family than we thought. This bothers me not one bit; Welsh was good enough for King Arthur and Dylan Thomas, after all. Having traveled in Wales, I can recommend Cardiff as one of the neatest towns there ever was just to hang out in. Swansea, Tenby, and Holyhead all have their charms, too. In fact, I can recommend visiting England, Wales, and Scotland for the history and the people.
Glad you enjoyed! I was to Cardiff for a day a number of years ago. It was a beautifully sunny day visiting Cardiff Castle and then WHOOSH down came the rain and our umbrella broke so we had to hide under a tree. A very fun memory.
Many Welsh went to Ireland so it's possible your ancestors went to Northern Ireland/Ulster as planters (if indeed they were 'Scotch-Irish'), and then on to the US a generation or so later. I'd also say that Americans seem to often claim Irish ancestry when they have a British surname and in many cases it's not Irish but Welsh, Scottish or English. For some reason in the US having Irish ancestry seems to be extremely sought after and the facts tend to get ignored, I mean who wants to claim English blood when the US fought the War of Independence against them, and as for Wales that might as well be Ireland for an American. I remember when I was at Uni in Wales my Northern Irish friend had met an American over the holiday and she sent him a letter, the letter arrived with an address of Glamorgan, Wales, IRELAND. 😂 That sums it up.
Oh very interesting and now I know why my Mother's side of the family has a 25 generation family chart. It is the two Welsh ancestors, one into Virginia in the 1600s, a Lewis and one in the 1870s, Williams, both from Brecon. Knowing ones ancestors was important.
In my family I have Ragland, Morgan, Davies, Jones and Thomas. My ancestor, Evan Ragland, was shanghaied from a dock in England and sold into servitude in Virginia.
Great explanation of the surnames systems and how they came about and the transition from Patronymic to Hereditary. From my understanding from a distant cousin on my Mom's side which is Day is that we are Welsh and not Irish as the family lore had is believe. The DNA proved that to be the case as I know for sure on dad's side which is Goodman that we come from the southern part of England and it has been traced back to at least a couple of generations back across the pond. Both sides have been on Texas since 1850. The Days came from Alabama and were in South Carolina and originally Virginia and Maryland. I just have not been able to connect to the generation that got here from Wales and make that jump back across the pond and find our ancestors there. What are the best resources for searching on genealogy sites for Welsh ancestors?
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Yeah figuring out immigrant ancestors is a tough one that I haven't really had to deal with in my own family tree research. I've done some descendant research where I've found mentions of where they ended up in the US in the newspapers and journals, but that's only really possible for people who had money. If you're looking for information on what the Welsh records are like, I made a video called "Welsh Genealogy, Top 5 Record Sets" that can help with that.
@@ejones8360 There are indeed two different spellings. The text below is a quote from Wikipedia: "This name is sometimes given as Tewdwr, the Welsh form of Theodore, but Modern Welsh Tudur, Old Welsh Tutir is originally not a variant but a different and completely unrelated name, etymologically identical with Gaulish Toutorix, from Proto-Celtic *toutā "people, tribe" and *rīxs "king" (compare Modern Welsh tud "territory" and rhi "king"[respectively), corresponding to Germanic Theodoric."
Thank you very much for the information. Just dipping my toes into following the past. My grandfather was a Davis. Guess we are related far down the line. Appreciate your time and energy to inform us. Very Interesting and informative. Take Care.
@@GenealCymru My Edward Davis (1829-1872) came to America (c. 1840) as a Puddler and I've never been able to get any earlier info than that because there are so many Davis's. Are we related too?
I was told my great grandpa was of welsh decent. His name was Woodward? Another grandpa will named gumersall from gombersal england. Small village in Yorkshire. It was recorded as gumersall by immigration officials.
I just watched your Welsh surname video, but you didn't mention mine. My Owen family has been traced back to Samuel J Owen (b. 1796) of Middlesex, England, but have not been able to trace him to Wales. I do have 8% Welsh ancestry, per AncestryDNA. Samuel J Owen is my 3rd Great Grandfather.
Kia ora, this was very informative. My first British ancestor to arrive in New Zealand in 1825 was named John Thomas. His father was a highwayman, also named John Thomas. Who transported to Australia from Devon in 1800. Recent DNA testing has showed we have Welsh ancestry. The name Thomas seems to have been common in Southern Wales, which neighbours Devon. We were proud to discover our Welsh heritage. We have Maori heritage as well. Maori also keep extensive family records call Whakapapa, mine goes back over 1000 years. Hopefully one day we will get to explore beautiful Wales.
I'm glad you enjoyed. And thanks for sharing about the Whakapapa. I love hearing about experiences of family history across different places and cultural traditions.
Thank you for this! I am a Wynn and figuring out who is who when everyone has the SAME NAME makes genealogical research crazy-making. Your info was very helpful in explaining why.😊
Glad you found it helpful! Definitely check out some of my other videos too cause most of them are and will continue to be about various ways to get around the same/common names issue.
My name is Emyr Griffith Davies, born Bangor 1960, Welsh speaker born of English mother of Welsh/Scottish parentage. Father born of Welsh parents, his mother, a Jones from Pentrefelin North Wales, and father, a Davies from Merthyr Tydfil South Wales.
My first name is Meredith. I was named after my great grandfather. Richard Meredith. (1834-). He was from Virginia. His lineage came from Wales. However, I can't find any information about him. His wife was my great grandmother. Mary Flora. I'm working on the family tree and have gaps to fill in. Thanks.
It was very nice to see this video and history. Fortunately my family has a extensive record of ancestry and surnames, and combined with the internet websites available, and lineage from other cousins and distant relatives, the lineage connects and makes such a vast record. I’m able to combine from a 3rd cousin in the family search, which has the Mormon records too. Going back much further than I’d ever dreamed. I subscribed and will follow your videos. My dads family were from England, Scotland and Wales, (Wallace, Glenn, Hughes, Baty, Winston, Burton, Woodson, Marshall, Vaughn, with a few others from the German, Austrian, France and Italy. Stumpf, Zimmerman,
Interesting video. I have a small amount of Welsh ancestry in various lines. Some of my Welsh ancestors were living in Shropshire but very close to the border with Wales (in places where almost all the people had Welsh names). One of the families goes from ap Evan in the mid-1600s through Beavan, ap Beavan, Bevan and even one Ab-Evans up to the early 1700s, with all of them interchangeable. So, for example, a Peter Beavan born mid-1600s in Chirbury, had children with the surnames Beavan, ap Evan, Bevan, ap Evan, Bevan, Ab-Evans and Bevan. One of my 4xG grandfathers was called Evan Evans, from Llanbister, but lived most of his life in Welshpool, and finding out anything about his origins is very difficult. Searching for Evan Evans in Wales is like searching for John Smith in England.
I had the same problem with my Great Grandmother, Jane Jones, but a mistake on one of the censor forms helped a lot, I was just browsing through different streets, remembering what my Grandmother told me, I saw someone of the right age group called Jenny Jones. It turned out that it should have been Jane E Jones, got her.😃 I was able to go back two more generations, revealing some very interesting history. Checking marriage certificates etc.
My Great Great Grandad used to live in the Big house which is now the Botanical Gardens in Carmarthen... He was a "Bit of a Lad" from what ive found out about him, having a few Ilagitamate children etc.. He just upped and left for the Goldrush over in the States and never returned.. I have an Aunt and Cousins living in Ohio and Alaska due to his Shenanigans! lol.! I live in Llanelli, Im a Griffiths... My House dates back to the 1700's (It used to be a Pub).. Thanks for the video.. Take care..
Names like Pritchard, Prowse, Preece and Probert are relics of the old system: the initial ‘P’ is what is left of ‘(M)ap’ - the equivalent of the Gaelic ‘Mac’ (son of).
This is what I struggle with, being a Pritchard… we can trace back to when the family arrived in Wisconsin, we know where they came from- Caernavon, but can’t find birth or marriage records- so was he Richard AP Richard and Robert AP Richard? So confusing!
My grandfather was named David John Morgan. We only realized recently that he was full Welsh and I’m just beginning to understand where we came from. Looking forward to learning more!
Oh yes, you'll find there are many David John Morgans in Wales (my 7x Great Grandfather was one hehe). I hope you enjoy learning about Wales and your heritage!
I am an English-born Davies, living in Cardiff, Wales. Davies is the most common surname here, surpassing Jones, etc. Interestingly, Davies is often mispronounced in England as Dave-eez, but all the Davies' I've met over my life pronounce it as Davis, as do you. I mostly worked in England, but only met a Davis (spelling) later in life, showing that Davis is not the English spelling and Davies the Welsh. I hadn't realised how late the naming system was adopted in Wales. Kerno Boy's comments are interesting, regarding the Cornish surnames.
I also used to think that Davies was the Welsh spelling and Davis the English/American spelling. But then I found one of my ancestors born in 1754 in rural Cardiganshire was a Davis. I was like hmmm that's interesting. The latest I've seen in my family for adopting the hereditary system was the late 1850s. I mention it briefly in my most recent long-form video on surnames.
I have rarely heard people use Dave-eez in England and the most famous people in the UK with those names such as Alan or Greg are always referred to as Davis.
My father was born in Shropshire and his father was Welsh. The surname we have is Powell. I wish I knew more about the Welsh side of my family. I think my grandfather was from the Vale of Glamorgan originally. Thank-you for sharing the history of Welsh names. It’s an interesting subject.
The name Powell comes from the old patronymic system, eg. Dafydd ap Hywel, which later would have become Dafydd Powell, Dafydd ap Rhys would have become Dafydd Price, Dafydd ap Huw became Dafydd Pugh, Rhisiart (Richard) became Pritchard, ap Owen became Bowen and there are others.
The Powell's originally hywel are of the grail lineage the holy grail bloodline came into Wales after the crucifixion around 35ad jesus is buried in wales and the ark of the covenant is in Wales
@@johnlewis9745 Thanks for the explanation- some I knew, others I didn't. I have a Powell in my FT and now know where it derived. Also I have Lewis. Do you know where that comes from?
My last name is Travis William Edwards, and I am an American. My Great Uncle, an attorney, was involved in a law suite and Manhattan NYC. The suite alleged our family were the rightful heirs to the Queens Farme in Manhattan. Do you think we were from Wales, and also related to the Tudors? I have a hard time deciding, but I am very interested to find out.
Edwards is either from Wales or England. It's similar to Evans, Williams, etc. You'd have to do your family history to see where exactly it's from though. And as for the Tudors, maybe? I'm sure there are people with links to them, but again, you'd have to prove those links with the records.
Hello, Travis! My middle name is Edward, a nod to my maternal side. I do know the Edwards were land-grant recipients(@Sparta, N.C.(Timber was King during that time-period, more valuable than gold!!)! Annie Edwards-Perry was a great-aunt of mine. The truth to the Manhatten Law-suit is, many claim owner-ship, a few are true, but thanks to scammer-real-estate deals coupled w/tax crazy city officials( a hundred+ years ago) it is cost prohibitive( in short, you would spend faaar mor$$ to attempt proof of ownership, than the land would be worth, even @ today's land prices)(They busted it into a thousand plots, and sold it, so, you would first have to prove it was"stolen", then sue each individual. I found a couple of very informative stories on Google/ T.V. Also, out of 37,500 original land grant on Va./N.C. border, less than approx 3500 acres remain spread through family now.(and the family is large.) But tracing family tree is worthwhile, just to know history. Good Luck!!
I’ve struggled doing ancestry family tree, not for my mum’s family that goes back to 1400 but southern England, however grandma Davies family that was a struggle because of all the continuing surnames and forenames being so similar. Soon as it got to Wales that is where the family tree ends.
I definitely suggest taking a look at some of the other videos on my channel. There's tons of them that help with Welsh genealogy specifically. And just in terms of expectations, getting to the 1400s for Wales is very, very difficult, so I'd say focus on figuring out the early 1800s. The 1700s, I've found, doesn't have the best records, especially if you're unable to get into the physical archives.
Thank you for this information I’ve been researching my family in the USA to the 1600’s with the Welsh name Jones. I am trying to see if I can find my family in Wales. I know I need to find the manifest when they came over.
Very cool. I wonder if there are surviving manifests from that far back? Eventually I'm definitely going to make a video about tracing back to Wales from whatever place our ancestors migrated to. It's not something I've looked into much yet myself, but it'll make for some interesting research
@@GenealCymru in the USA during the civil war General William Sherman marched on the south and burned all the courthouses anything that was saved in these buildings were burned that was before 1863. My family landed in Yorktown VA in 1650. Williamsburg library research department suggested that I look for the manifest that they would have been coming over on. I don’t know the name of the ship or the port they came from. Would be interesting to find out.
Our surname is Cadogan and I'm 3rd generation Australian. I tried years age doing our family tree but when I got to my great great grandfather things got complicated, I worked some of it out but ended up taking a brake from it for a few years.
Well you're clearly from the city of Cardigan, which would be pronounced Cadogan in an Australian accent! I'm from there as well, and highly recommend you go visit if you can. It's a fabulous area! Unfortunately the local records office has closed and everything has been digitized and centralized in Aberystwyth. I had previously had great success with the local registrar at Cardigan, but when I returned a few years ago I was devastated not to have access to the original books. I had no luck dealing with the digital records at all.
The surnames I have found in my tree are from Flintshire: Hooson, Roberts, Parry, Price; and from Breconshire/Monmouthshire: Prothero, Prosser, Whitance, so far. Interesting video.
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Very interesting and thanks for posting. I recently discovered that two of my Welsh great grandfathers were called William Williams and Owen Owens which perhaps suggests a certain tradition - or a lack of imagination.
Yes, mine was Thomas Thomas. When tracking down genealogy, my aunt got stumped when she ran into 14 Thomas Thomases in Swansea all born around the same time!
@@anncoxwell7015 My father's father was named Thomas, his eldest son was Thomas, My Uncle Tom, My mothers sister married a Thomas they had a son named Thomas, I married a Thomas, I had a son, We named him Mark.😃
@@iriscollins7583 There’s an additional ‘fun’ tradition: 1st son is named after child’s father 2nd son: Father’s first brother 3rd soon: Father’s second brother Etc etc etc Some families seemed to do this routinely, some not at all…maybe those more inclined to actively want to keep to tradition as so much was changing around them? Sometimes (they ran out of paternal uncles? Black sheep? Mom’s family lived nearby?) they might have pulled from mom’s or extended family which I could tell due to an unusual name. I’m also running into the possibility that cousins named children after my GG-grandfather’s bardic name!
I have Welsh ancestry on my paternal side on, My ancestors were Wogan Williams Phillipps Hughes Davies Davis Thomas Howell Evans Lloyd Vaughan Morris Griffith Lewis, and Roberts, and Jenkins.
Vaughans are buried in Brecon Cathedral down by the Havard capel. and Wogans are on the maternal side decended from the illegitimate daughter of William( I )the bastard. of Normandy.
Our family (Davis) first ancestor to come here to America from wales was Rev William Davis changed from Davies at some point. My maiden last name is Davis ☺️ so interesting
That's really cool! Do you know what part of Wales Rev. William Davis was from? (also, don't worry about the rude reply you got. They won't be doing any more commenting around here :) )
Any suggestions for tracing Welsh lineage? I think my maternal grandfather’s ancestors (“Wigfield”) may have emigrated from Wales in the early 18th century but can find no connection before his arrival in the America.
I have a couple videos out already that show some different strategies I use, so I'd recommend those. More are always in the works. My direct Welsh family left Wales in 1965, so I haven't really had to do the thing you're trying to figure out (finding the connection from the Americas to Wales). I mostly go the opposite direction: I'll find someone far back who was born in Wales and then have to find them later living in the Americas and that has its own challenges.
Indeed. Many people are under the impression that there arent many Welsh surnames. But that isn't true. In proportion to its size, Its actually quite alot.
Hi, I know it’s a year after you have posted this, but I wanted to say Evan Davis is a name in my tree along with many other Welsh names. ❤ Thanks for posting this, it’s super helpful!!
Our surname is Boliver which comes from ab/ap Oliver. Our branch swapped the ab/ap in 1730 to become Bolivers. Other branches lost it completely and are just Oliver's now. I have never thought of Oliver as a particularly Welsh associated name so I shall have a look into the origin of that name. Most of the Bolivers I've traced were born across the border in Shropshire although most of the ancestral names are very Welsh. The furthest back I've gone genetically is to a 9th cousin once removed who is an Oliver whose family went to America. Our nearest common ancestor was Hugh ap Oliver born 1620 (in Shropshire). I haven't been able to trace further back than this but your channel has given me some good hints about where to start again.
I once knew a woman with the maiden name "Dolliver," which apparently was a Welsh derivative of the Norman French name "d'Olivier." There were two major Norman invasions of Wales, in 1083 and 1204.
My great grandfather came from Wales to upstate New York. His name was Thomas Thomas. I’ve tried to follow the line back in Wales but there are thousands of people in the Thomas line. Your video was very interesting!
@@sanji1701 I have had the same issue. In the mid-1800s there were several Thomas Thomases born in Swansea, all within a year or so of each other. Sorting them is just about impossible !
@@anncoxwell7015 I think I can eliminate anyone highly educated. My grandfather, Gordon Wesley Thomas said that his family came from coal miners. I wish I could talk to him and ask a lot more questions.
wow, this is fascinating! thank you for sharing! my mum’s DNA tested as welsh (mine did not) and we have a jones line on her side that i can find in liverpool before emigrating to the US in the 1890s, but i’ve always wondered if we have any welsh further up that line! also, i find your voice very relaxing to listen to 🙏🏼
Further down, many Welsh people would often settle in England a generation or two before leaving for America. This is what makes many North Americans believe they are solely English. When many are a mix.
I have Jones from Carnarvonshire, Wales. My great grandfather’s Welsh bible with his handwritten notations was a fascinating item when I was a child. I don’t know what happened to it, sadly.
One point to note regarding the Anglicization of surnames is the traditional Welsh alphabet does not include the letters V and J which excludes the spelling of surnames Jones and Evans from being Welsh. The letter F in the Welsh alphabet is pronounced as you would the letter V whilst FF would give you the traditional sound of the English letter F.
I have heard that Jones is formed from Yəhôḥānān), Johan to JOHN or JON from the bible but as said here AP was commonly the first bit of the name and as no J was available Si was sometimes used as it is a close approximation to sh as in show,or The sound generated from ‘Si-‘ in Siôn is a Welsh approximation of the English ‘J’ sound that doesn’t exist natively to the language (refer to Irish Seán), equivalent to the English ‘Sh’ such as in “shed.” so Jones was sometimes spelled AP Sion, and son of, added the S. (Bloody Normans) When anglicised again it became JONES after the AP was dropped.
Hi, a Williams here. Welsh ancestry. I recall a poem I heard years ago about the naming of the welsh people. The first line is 'Williams, Baker, Smith, and Jones...' Does any one recall hearing this? A quick google reveals nought.
@@McCRBen When I was in Washington DC, a couple of years ago, I picked up an Irish Williams coat of arms key ring, from an Irish shop. Pretty pleased with that. I am sad or what?
Maddox (Madoc) is my surname. Records show that my 3x Great Grandfather (also a Maddox) arrived to Virginia USA on a boat sailing under the British flag that had departed from Scotland, but he was of Welsh origin. Have you any ideas of regions in Wales where the Maddox (Madoc) name was prevalent during the period of 1800-1850 or in this present time as well or has our name completely vanished from the area?
I don't have a specific answer for your question. But Madox is derived from a patronymic like most Welsh surnames, so it originated in all parts of Wales. It's not like many English surnames where they started in one place and then spread by people moving away from that area. Since it's from a Welsh-language name, there's a chance it might be less common across Wales, but I don't know how helpful it'd be for actually finding your ancestors in Wales. My other video, The Truth about Your Welsh Surname explains how this works a bit more and you might find it interesting.
A lot of old coal mining towns in the Mid West USA are still woefully short on their Welsh ancestry and focus much more on the Italian side of things. Im not sure it's just my theory that Welsh and Italians often look similar and the Welsh and Italian flags have the same colours. I lived in Clinton Indiana throughout the 90s and it was me that informed the locals including the town Mayor of they're Welsh heritage. So now on the Labour Day weekend festival known as "the little Italy festival " in Clinton, the Jonses,Davis's, Llewellyns and Evans all all display the Welsh flag on their porches. Also the town has included the Red Dragon flag in the town fountain display. 💚❤
Yeah identity is complicated matter and there's a lot that goes into it beyond blood/DNA/descent. Nice to know that people are finding an interest in their Welsh history though :) I've traced quite a few of my ancestors to the US who went for mining. I've got one that went to Pittsbourgh around 1800 (probably as a Baptist minister though), but I haven't been able to find him in the US records yet. It can be really hard to make that connection across the ocean.
@@GenealCymru yes its more of a fading of knowledge tthan a sinister plot. As you well know , even today Wales is not a household name the way Scotland and Ireland are. The house I lived in in Clinton was the 1st residential house built in that town , next door to the original pig farmers . Two families from Wales Davis and Reese were joined by a marriage and went on to donate land for the library which they did again in the late 1990s to expand , in fact they donated or sold extremely cheaply the house and land next door to tgr library , ( in other words prime real estare) . My uncle is a Davis and his son is Reese , carrying on the old tradition. My great uncle waz an architectural Historian and professor and when he grew up in that house during the 30s up to the 60s it was a Welsh speaking houshold. I waz very surprised to be greeted by him in fluent Welsh 🙂
I have been told that I have some Welsh ancestry somewhere along the line, but I don't know where. You mentioned my surname, Rice, which originated in County Louth, Ireland. I also have ancestors from Norway, the Scarborough family, who sailed to Iceland in 865, and were the original settlers of Iceland, and then sailed to England in 930. They also owned The Mayflower, the ship that the pilgrims sailed to America on. I also have other English ancestors, the Stanley family.
The Name Rice is a derivation on the Welsh Rhys I believe. Many links from Wales to Ireland down the centuries. Many Welsh soldiers settled in Ireland after the Norman attacks. This is where you get surnames such as Rice, Walsh, Branigan, And Griffin from. So more than likely you have Welsh ancestry due to the name and no doubt have Irish as they would have mingled.
My 3 grandfather Thomas came from Wales to the U.S. approximately 1854.That’s the date he purchased property. Census say he was born in So. Wales. Haven’t been able to find any information on him before 1854. My husband’s Williams family says they are Welsh, but haven’t found any information before 1810 when they were early settlers in Kentucky, U.S.
I hope you figure it out one day. I'm lucky in the sense that my family left Wales in 1965, so I haven't had to do the tough work of connecting people outside Wales to the records of them back in Wales. I'm not sure how it compares to finding people in Wales and having to find them in the US or Australia, which I've had to do a couple times.
I married a Jones a relative of Benoni Jones who has a plaque in Massachusetts as a survivor of a massacre. He is decended from Griffith Jones who came to America in 1635. He was from Frongoch Merionwethshire. He is mentioned in History of the Connecticut Valley. His mother was Margaret Jane Griffith sister of Henry 1st Baronet of Burton Agnes.
What can you tell me about the name Rhys? An ancestor of mine who was French married a woman named Rose Rhysse but it turns out she may have come from the town in Flanders called Rhysse which was the original place name of Lille, France. Was the name brought to Wales?
Interesting. Rhys is one of the patronymic surnames coming from the first name Rhys. I'm pretty sure it had an original meaning of "Champion" in Wales. There were Welsh leaders names Rhys all the way back over 1000 years ago, so it's probably just the case that a similar name also originated in France too.
Always been told I have English, Irish, Scottish & Welsh DNA on dad’s side ... with family-tree surnames that read as evidence of this ... but ‘23nMe’ only identifies English & Irish- why is his or what DNA company/service would you recommend?
I think that the important thing to note is that surnames don't equate to DNA. They might suggest a certain historical experience across generations, but that isn't the same as DNA. I honestly don't think there's a lot of value in doing DNA tests, so I don't have any recommendations. Sorry to not be of more help.
DNa services are shady. They often throw Welsh genetics in with Irish and English. Despite never connecting Irish and English. It make no sense at all...well, unless you're up to no good.
@@jwsoaresjones1560And as DNA databases expand as more and more people use them, the results change. If there are gaps in a database’s knowledge, the algorithm won’t reflect reality.
My family name is Price and we originate from Brecon (Brecknock) my English mother’s maiden name is Preece. I have wondered if their was an historic connection between these two names - Does anyone know?
The channel has just had its 1 Year Anniversary, so feel free to hang out and watch some of my other 30 or so videos on Welsh History, Genealogy, and Culture.
If you want to get started on your own Family History research, check out the 1-week Free Trial through FindMyPast using my affiliate link: tidd.ly/3QmPMrk
Check out my other vids on Welsh naming patterns. The Truth about YOUR Welsh Surname: th-cam.com/video/0a6eognNi-M/w-d-xo.html Explaining Welsh First Names: th-cam.com/video/SMPNF8V-140/w-d-xo.html
Hey mate, my father's side of the family were Welsh, I was born in NZ. They all passed before I could remember them. We are Foley's which apparently is Irish? Are there Welsh Foley's? New sub. Cheers
@@footrot17 Hey, there very well could be. I haven't encountered any in my research yet. Surname DB says this about the history of Foley: "This interesting surname is an Anglicized form of the Old Gaelic "O'Foghladha". The Gaelic prefix "O" indicates "male descendant of", plus the personal byname "Foghladha" meaning pirate or plunderer. This great sept originated in the southern Munster County of Waterford, and from there spread to Counties Cork and Kerry, where the name is particularly widespread, and ranks among the sixty most numerous surnames in Ireland." But who knows, maybe they stopped over in Wales before getting to NZ! :)
@@GenealCymru pirate or plunderer! lol
I know at least 3 generations were coal miners, so yeah they probably did move about. Thanks a lot for replying mate. Much appreciated.
Good work for just a year!!
Thank you! :D It's been a lot of work and a lot of learning, but it's great fun :)
Swedish surnames often are taken from nature, such as names of trees, herbs and flowers. Also names like Berg = Mountain, Sjö= Lake, Skog = Forest, Blom = Flower and all sorts of combination of such nature denominations. I haven't seen this in any other country. What can I say, we love nature!🇸🇪
That's very cool. I've seen some people with Lake as their surname in Wales, but yeah it's not super common. A first name that we have is Olwen, which means something like white footprint, but represents bunches of white clover flowers that an old goddess made when she walked through the forest.
@@GenealCymru Interesting!
@@GenealCymru One third of the 24 members of the Swedish government wear nature inspired surnamed. One is called Liljestrand = Lilybeach.
Welsh first names likewise quite commonly are taken from nature. Eira - Snow, Eirlys - Snow Drop, Heulwen - Sunshine, Llinos - Linnet etc but nearly always names for females.
Germany beats Sweden with the number of surnames derived from nature.
Thank you for this very interesting video.
There is an increasing emergence of channels such as yours spreading awarenesses of my precious little country!
It is most encouraging to discover people around the world are finding an interest in this part of the UK that often gets overlooked.
It may be a small country, but it has a rich history connected to ancient Britain!
Best wishes in developing an increased following.
You have one more subscriber.💖
Thanks for your kind message! I'm glad you enjoyed. Yeah I'm hoping to fill the gap in the 18th to the present history of Wales that like never gets any attention. I find mostly it's medieval history that gets done and I think our more recent ancestors deserve some love too!
my ancestors are from Wales
My 3rd great grandfather came to America from WALES, JAMES C. EVANS so here I am in the USA, stories of him speaking Welsh with other welshmen in Eureka Nevada in the late 1800s intrigue me as well as many other stories
I was very surprised to learn there was a good sized Welsh community in the Berkeley/Oakland California area, many were Welsh-speaking. My great grandparents went back to Wales from PA, had two sons, then returned to the US. They were pretty determined to maintain their Welshness, spoke Welsh at home, family members lived nearby and my mom remembers the Aunties chattering primarily in Welsh. There were Eisteddfod here, various places, at least intermittently, one regularly in Malad Idaho. Her dad wouldn’t speak it a lot but i have a cassette of him singing a children’s song about a chicken. Mom understands some words, at this point I might understand more than her though I have trouble putting more than one sentence together at a time.
And Welsh is still going strong here in the homeland. Cymru am byth 💖
@@ClubSoda98 im welsh decent Davies living in canada
@@daffyduck4267 My great great grandmother was like that. The story goes that she pulled the boys out of the mines when their dad was killed and they sang at various functions as a family foursome. When she was bedridden before she died she didn’t talk for i think a month. One day she sat up and sang Aberystwyth, all verses in Cymraeg of course, lay back and didn’t talk again. Śhe died a few days later. I wish I’d had someone speaking Welsh while I was growing up. It’s a lot harder to learn on your own with an app!!
My Grandpa's welsh surname has sadly come to the end of the line. My uncle only had daughters and they both are taking new surnames when they get married.
I was glad to see this. Someone in my fam tree had the name Llewelyn, or Llewellyn. When someone immigrated to the US, it got changed, simplified, to "Lewallen," and i have *always* wished it was spelled the original Welsh way. Subscribed, and am checking out the channel for the first time today! Thx!
At the same time it's pretty clever changing to Lewallen because it likely saves a lot of the original pronunciation in whatever place they ended up. I figure that's why a lot of Davies' who went to the Americas ended up as Davis', for the sake of the pronunciation.
I am a Llewellyn and my dads family is from south Wales. I was born and live in England , but I always spell out my surname on the phone ( and pronounce it the English way. without the double LL sound) as otherwise I get some very funny spelling. Shakespeare in Henry the V spelt it Fluellen !
@@philllewellyn6464 I've read Fluellen and heard Thuellan, etc. I love the true spelling with the double lls!
@@vickielewallen3799 and with Llewelyn as a middle name good to have it pronounced properly too!
@philllewellyn6464 I am too. Born in England my nan's dad was Welsh from Tenby south Wales.I've had some bizarre spelling of my name and always have to spell it out but I wouldn't change it for the world and am very proud of my Welsh heritage.
This video fortuitously came into my feed! Both of my maternal grandparents were from Abergavenny but only my grandmother had Welsh lineage. I now know why the family tree starts to get muddled as I try to get past my great-great grandparents - Davies kept marrying Davies and it’s hard to know if it’s the “right Davies”!
Thank-you for this wonderful history lesson.
I have some other videos that can help you with all the common names. I'm also fortunate to have at least 5 Davies families that I'm descended from haha, but you may want to look at my video on place names and on Welsh first names/naming patterns if you're looking for any support as you work on your tree :)
Lots of Davies are part of my family.. my grandmother for one. 😊
I got messed up with a birth certificate, thinking a Jones married a Jones... but it turns out the mother was a Davies. It would appear daddy registered the baby's birth too late, so in order to avoid the fine he gave the wrong birth date. She was born in January, so I was told weather probably was the reason. He also didn't seem to understand the concept of maiden name so he listed his wife as being a Jones rather than Davies.
Thank you for speaking slowly and deliberately. It helps absorb the info. I am forwarding this to a Williams who speaks Gaelic, and a Morgan, ex long ago of Wales.
Thanks. That's what I was going for and I'm glad i helped. I figured there'd also be a lot of people who have a different accent from me watching and so the slower pace would help.
My maternal grandfather's name was Evans, I researched his line and found out they came to America from Cardigan in the early 1800's. They were Calvinist brick makers who sailed down the Ohio River from Pennsylvania on rafts, settling in Ohio to build the first railroads there. Thank you for your excellent content and fantastic delivery ❤
Welcome to the family, Willow.
My mother was Evans. Her ancestors came to America in 1759. They sailed from Dublin to the Philadelphia port. They then traveled down to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia where my family still lives. My husband's family is also pure Welsh--Griffith.
The patronymic system of naming held on in Scandinavia (and still does in Iceland) up until fairly recently historically. One of the amusing things about my own ancestry is that my grandmother had older siblings with different last names. When they came to this country, her father gave his name as Magnus Erlandson. His children who arrived with him were thus "Magnusson." But everyone of his children born in this country had Erlandson as their last name.
Different names on coming to America, is the story in my family.
I am not sure but among five brothers and a sister, one took the name of a rich uncle, another a patinomic of his father, another ( rumored to be his mother's child) after the name meaning "golden". Their mother used a name connected to military service, because it came with a pension.
BUT
My favorite story is how the Dutch, when forced to take last names by the Spainish crown, made up as silly of a name as they could think of, for example a name meaning "bornaked". 😁
Lucky!! Had that been two or three generations earlier it could’ve been a lot harder to untangle!!
Half of my kids are related to every other Hillendahl on the planet. When his father‘s family came a few generations prior they didn’t know what to do with Heiligentoggen (sp?). I guess Ellis Island was familiar with the “dahl” suffix and went that direction!
l heard a lot of lcelanders are dropping this naming system as archiac and going for something a bit more modern !
My Grandmother was the same way. Both of her parents and her older sisters were all born in Sweden, so they had their father's first name as their last name. She was born in Iowa. So she had her father's last name as her last name ..
@@Sam_Green____4114 GRUNTS ?
Most people do not realize that in Samoa there are a lot of people with the last name Pritchard. They are Welsh descendants. I would love to see you do a follow-up on the Pritchards
Very cool! No plans for more surname videos at the moment, but I could look into Welsh migration to Samoa for a video on that. I'll write it in my notes.
Bounty descendents??
Probably from ap Risiart.
@@edpe64 Interesting...
And MORGANS ,too ,are in the Islands of the pacific. Sailors became fathers in these remote places. ❤
I have known for years that my Jones ancestral surname was Welsh. What a nice surprise to see your channel and learn that my Williams, James, Edwards and Thomas surnames are likely Welsh.
I’d also heard “s” endings often connotated Welsh.
Do you know what part of whales that Jones originated from? My mother-in-law’s is a Jones from Northeastern Wales, about 30 miles south of Liverpool. There seems to be a lot of Joneses around that area.
@@fleetskipper1810 jones is like smith in English ie very common surname
Not from any particular area of wales
I think wlliam is norman (via william the conqueror) and Edward was anglo saxon
My maternal grandfather was Edward Edwards ,my grandmother was Elizabeth Jones from the Welsh/Shropshire Borders.
Keep the Welsh language alive ! It is the sound of the British isles
It's the sound of a long subjugated people
Its a useless language only spoken by a few arrogant aholes
I discovered some Welsh heritage. I'm Very proud of it.❤
I have Welsh on both sides of my family.
They can’t keep statues alive. They’re fucked. Love to wales and the welch.
This was most enlightening. Always fun to learn about peoples names.
my last name is Czuba. we are from southern Poland. but I enjoyed your video, very informative and interesting. I would love to go to visit Wales. I lived in Kent, southern England for 2 years when I was a lad, because my father had a job in Sandwich circa 1973, I was 5! would love to visit Britain again, but especially the country and Wales ! thx
You would be very welcome! 🇬🇧
I am half Welsh and have many family in Sandwich! Both Kent/South-East England and Wales are incredibly beautiful when you know where to look, especially Wales! Very interesting info Andrew thanks for sharing! :)
Wales might be small country but they have big heart wonderful people so friendly pleasure to visited them respect from you're celtic cousins of Scotland
My Thomas and Davis ancestors settled in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia in the early to mid 1700's. Amazing how a country as small as Wales had such a huge impact by its diaspora worldwide.
Absolutely. I have some videos planned about some of those connections between Wales and the rest of the world.
All of britain par the Highlands were once Welsh speaking Britons. This island was conquered over and over again and the remainder of everybody is in modern day Wales
I have Watkins, Lewis and I think Hughes that came to Wilkes-Barre & Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s, I *think* my Rees’ & Griffiths stayed mostly in Wales. Davis and Reynolds’s in 1700s, in a circle where Kentucky/Tennessee/Virginia meet. Several Reynolds’s pop up in my Ancestry DNA matches. There are also Fraleys, Smiths and a few Edens.
Do you know anything about the surname Yancey? We have a county and a city named after Us in North Carolina but the name is lost in time from the 1600s it goes nowhere but the rumor is, they came over from Wales.
@@wylldflower5628 wow , I'm a Jones and my great grandmother maiden name was Hughes all from KY . Prior to 1850-60s ? Virginia 😁.
Thanks for the video, really interesting to read the comments from all over the world, with the same surname I'm Welsh or Cymro, Cymru is Wales, Wales was invented for us, its a very rich place historically and our beautiful language. I'm live in South Wales but my name Griffiths comes from Denbighshire North Wales.
Agreed. Welsh history is fascinating. It is such an important part of global history that I don't think gets talked about enough. Most of the time it's medieval history that gets covered, but the modern period is where Wales really shines in my opinion.
Shw mai Dai, My Grandfather was a proud South Walian 'Silure' as he refered to the Roman title of tribalism. Born and raised in Pen Y graig atop the Rhondda. He could recount our family lineage to six centuries!
My father being the eldest of his offspring was the 1st male in our family not to be born in Cyymru.
I found your video here most interesting and will certainly watch more. Cantre Diolch!
Glad you enjoyed the video!
My great-grandmother gave her sons Evans as middle names, after her mother-in-law's maiden name. I think this was a way to honor her heritage. It was fun finding out I had Welsh roots.
Same here, It was also fun when i found out i have Welsh roots.
Nancy Adamou. I get tired of US tv scripts saying that the name EVAN is Irish. America is obsessed with Irish. Evan and Evans is Welsh. The name Roberts can be found all over Wales. The US Chief Supreme Court justice, John Roberts, has a Welsh name. It would be interesting to check his ancestry.
@@patryan1375 I'm not sure why you brought up Evans being Irish here in the US, I had never heard that.
Welcome to the family, Nancy!
Awaken my dragon 🐲.. hmmmm..😁..
My Grandmother Jones was a war bride, came to Canada after WW2 - she was from Pontypool. Trajically she died before I was born and just recently I was thinking of exploring her roots. Thanks for this, really interesting info.
I hope you do find out about her history. Glad you enjoyed the video. I've got some research coming up that's taking me (in the records) to Pontypool too-I just found out a relative was a vicar there.
With a population over around 3.5 million and knowing where your grandmother came from in Wales should help but there are a lot of Jones’s in Wales. Pob lwc!
@@garmit61 I was born a Jones
There’s a lot do do and see around Pontpool as it’s not far from Cardiff, the capital, which has a lot to offer & see xxx
@@kushcloud420 me too
All my ancestors came to the U.S. before the American revolution and settled in Appalachia. There is a county is Kentucky named "Davies". I always wondered about the spelling--now I understand.
Mine too. Often people came in groups, were related and even moved to new areas in the New World as a group. My Mom's family moved to Georgia as a group of related families to Ga from SC. People tended to move west and south as new lands opened up. Dad's went west. All started out in either Va. or Penn.
I was born in Owensboro, Kentucky which is in Daviess County. Owen is another Welsh name. We had Welsh farmers here who came down the Ohio River on flat boats from Pennsylvania and Maryland and raised sheep 🐑 and we are known for our barbecued mutton. You can eat it at Moonlight BBQ or Old Hickory if you’re ever in town.
Most of the settlers in Appalachia were English,Scottish and Welsh.The census records of the Appalachian states from the 19th century have their names and where they were from by it.
its a great name, means "very handsome, athletic, intelligent"😁
I’m also a Davies and my family originate from cwmbran.
This was really intresting!!
Thank you for covering welshness as it’s often so missed
Very cool. And I totally agree. I ultimately started the channel because there's just not much info on Wales on TH-cam especially beyond Medieval history. Glad you enjoyed!
This is so interesting! Thank you for taking the time to put this together. This actually sheds a tiny bit of light on my family history.
Thanks again!
That's awesome! I'm glad you found the video useful. I've got lots of other Welsh history and genealogy videos on the channel that you might enjoy also and that go into more specific topics like migration and different examples of how people actually got their surnames.
Most of the common Welsh surnames are well represented in Jamaica, such as Morgan Griffiths Cadogan Meredith Howell/Powell Jones Davies/Davis Llewellyn Evans Vaughan. There are a large amount of Thomas and Williams too, but those are possibly from all over Britain and Ireland.
Yeah. Wales played a big role in British imperialism and slavery which is a big part of why those names are so common in Jamaica. There's definitely videos in the works about all that. If you know any black Jamaicans who are looking for some support doing their family history, I can do some work free of charge. I have some experience with the Jamaican records from doing a loved one's tree. There's a couple Jamaican genealogy Facebook groups that I'm in that are probably the friendliest and most helpful groups on Facebook.
@@GenealCymru Oh! Thanks for the information. The two persons I know personally their male ancestors came dacades after slavery was abolished, one Meredith and one Griffiths. I can ask if they are interested.
@@AnthonyEvelyn Aa okay. Interesting. The tree that I did went back to early to mid-1800s South Trelawney/North Manchester area. I've got a bit of a one-place study going for one of the communities there, trying to collect as many records as I can.
@@GenealCymru Thank you very much!
@@GenealCymru I am a black American Morgan who is married to a Welsh Morgan and we live in Mid Wales. I know that some of the Welsh who immigrated to The USA were Quakers and abolitionists. Is there anything in your research that would suggest newly freed black people might have taken the surname of some of these Welsh abolitionists? There's certainly a lot of Jones, Thomas, Davis, Williams, and Evans. It's all so fascinating! My husband has managed to trace his father's family just a bit further back than you did (1680s).
I'm a Davis (many generations into the US)! I knew I was in good company but didn't know there were soooo many of us.
I am glad I stumbled upon this. It explains quite a bit about my family name. My last name is spelled Rees. Three of my grandparents came from Wales. My paternal grandparents last name was spelled Rhys. My understanding is my grandfather changed his six children's spelling of our last name as he felt it was more American.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing! Yeah Rhys had quite the number of spelling variations. One thing to remember when it comes to even the early 1800s is that many people didn't know how to read or write. So often it would be someone else writing down their name and so they would just learn from that. But definitely Anglicising names would be advantageous for migrants to the US.
Ap Rhys or of Rhys morphed into pryce from my understanding.
@@greybone777 Also Preese and Price.
I wonder if we have a connection because my fatherline is Preece which take the p out and you got Reece which could be another variation but who knows.. every welsh person I spoke to always says you cant get a more welsh name than preece and whenever I visit powys I always get a weird feeling and I can see, hear or feel the spirits in the castle their.
Excellent narration with accurate pronunciation
They say that things change with time and I always say....."They TRY to change." When my parents married, both sides of the family were more than annoyed. They BOTH said they had "Married outside their race", even though both sides were white as milk. My mother was a Campbell and her mother was a Jones. My father was a Reynolds and his mother was a Pool..... possibly Dutch. Reynolds has become a common enough English name in the last thousand years because of the Norman Conquest, without being a Norman name. Reynolds is the Anglicized version of Reginwald, from Switzerland. It turns out that a third of Duke William's army in 1066 were Swiss and Burgundian mercenaries. After the invasion, the new Reynolds tribe was parked on the Welsh frontier at Devon and it is from there that all the Reynolds' in the world originated.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
My paternal grandmother was a Reynolds ! From Tres Hebert in the Rhonda valley. I know I butchered the spellings.She immigrated to Canada when she was 16 in the 30's. I still have her steamer trunk she used for the boat ride.
Thanks for the info on our name. Hello cousin ! From 🇨🇦❤🌈
Interesting comment! Thank you
@@thekatt... My mom’s…. Father was born in Treherbert. His mothers Rees/Griffiths side moved there from Llandybie Carmarthenshire. They seemed to have 2-3 little homes in a row, various family members moved through! Small world, I’ve never seen Treherbert on a board even!
The “outside their race” wasn’t so long ago! I was put up for adoption in part because my father wasn’t a nice Welsh boy from the Oakland/Berkeley Welsh community, in spite of his Davis surname!! After I met my mom my cousin told me it was a good thing I hadn’t found her when our grandfather was alive-I had a lot of red in my brown hair and moss green eyes; apparently he had quite the Irish, umm, feeling!
my maternal grandfather was of welsh descent. he was george leland hughes. thanks for a very good video. i subscribed.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed!
It might interest you that Cromwell was a name that was known in Wales. After the Civil War and the actions of Oliver Cromwell the Welsh connection changed their name to Williams. A friend was able to trace her ancestry back and this is what she found.
They changed it from Williams to Cromwell. I believe his ancestry was Welsh and Dutch.
@@taffyducks544 He had distant Welsh ancestry due to his great-great grandfather being Welsh, but this ancestor moved to England and married an Englishwoman and took her surname. So he is mostly English
Eerie. I have the same story In my family background. Small world
@@fyrdman2185 wouldn't be mostly, very difficult to now show the strength of any particular ancestry where he would be concerned. I never meant to claim he wasn't English, just highlighting his ancestral ties with other nations.
My family (Williams) descends directly from Cromwell.
My mother's maiden name was Bebel. She was from Cardiff and I grew up in the States but know nothing of it's origins because of her passing at a young age. I thank you for the knowledge..
Wow this was quite detailed. I appreciate you splitting the difference between the hereditary and the patronymic naming conventions. I'm heading to Wales soon and a lot of these names pop up at the little town that we are looking at because we have family origins into town of Lanelly Hill. Thanks for the video and keep up the good stuff
Glad you enjoyed! I hope you have a good trip. :D
Fascinating video! Reese from Nebraska here! My Great Grandad and his folks immigrated from Pembroke and Pill in 1872, but I would love to track down more records from over seas! This vid earned a sub from me!
Glad you enjoyed! Definitely check out some of my other videos that talk more about how to do Welsh Genealogy. The one on the Top Welsh Record Sets might be a good place to start :). 1872 is a really good immigration date because they'll have been in multiple census' by that point which is always helpful!
Interesting and informative video, thank you! My family emigrated from Wales to the USA in the late 1600's. My ancestors first arrived in Pennsylvania then moved west to the Appalachian Mountains where they later began a slow migration south on what is known today as the Appalachian trail. My closest ancestors settled in Northwestern South Carolina. My DNA shows that my ancestors came to Wales from the Saxony region of modern-day Germany just after the Romans abandoned their conquest in Wales. I was fortunate to learn so much about my ancestors so far back in the past.
I'm glad you enjoyed! It seems like your ancestors followed a path that a lot of Welsh people took at that time. There's so many who went to Pennsylvania. I don't know much about Appalachia, but I'm sure they would have had connections with others who took that route.
@@GenealCymru Yes, it seems the Griffith family settled along the Trail in every current state that the Trail goes through, all the way to its end down in or near Alabama. There is a place near where I live in South Carolina called Welsh Neck which began as settlement of Welsh Baptist people from Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1737. It was the result of Robert Johnson, the royal governor of the province of South Carolina, granting the first Welsh settlers ten thousand acres in northeastern South Carolina during 1730 that eventually became known as the Welsh Tract.
Wow that's really interesting. Every time I see Welsh Baptists in Pennsylvania, I always wonder if some of them were my ancestors too. There's quite a few who I know went to the US but who I haven't been able to find in the records.
There are a lot of Welsh surnames in West Virginia. That’s because mining was the big industry there. A lot of Welsh miners emigrated there to seek employment in a job they already knew. My husband’s Welsh relatives were all miners in NE Wales. They were Joneses.
At 2:04 on your list of names are many of my relatives from the 1600s or earlyer Llewelyn Griffith and my 7th great grandfather John Griffith second wife was a widow of Morgan Rhydderch her name was Jane and after Morgans death her son names were Abel Morgan and Enoch Morgan very neet.
Very cool. That page comes from a book of pedigrees by Lucy Ellen Lloyd Theakston. I haven't found any connections to the nobility in my family, other than through marriage, so none of my ancestors ever show up in those pedigree books. It's too bad. Although, I think I've seen Abel and Enoch Morgan throughout my research. There's a family of Abels that are kinda parallel to my family and some other families I research.
Wow! I learned a lot. Thank you for sharing this. You have great narrative style.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!
Fascinating content, clearly and soothingly presented. Thank you (Canada?). I just love this stuff! We recently had an exhibition in my area of South East London on generations of British emigrants including the original Patagonian Welsh communities. It presented a thought-provoking juxtaposition of the experience of my own parents’ challenging arrival in cold 1960s London from the West African colonies, and the British poor starting afresh in turn of the 20th Century Australia, Canada…A surprisingly similar experience of triumph over adversity.
From a Nigerian Cockney.
👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👍🏿🇬🇧🇳🇬🇨🇦🏴
The Patagonian Welsh who landed on the wrong continent were mainly from Bala in North Wales
Thank you, for posting the video. I knew I had some Welsh roots, but never got around to seeing from where my ancestors hailed. My maternal grandmothers side has the strongest line; Dawson, from Ruabon, Debingshire, Wales, & Meredith, which traces back to Trelawynd, Rhyl, Wales to circa 1700. I think there is another line out of Caerwys. Hitting the subscribe button, now.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed. And thanks for sharing your story too!
My great grandfather came from Swansea Wales. He was a Williams as well, but I've had trouble tracking the family back into Wales. Thanks for the info.
No problem. Glad you found the video helpful. I've got plenty more videos focussed on how to do Welsh research that can help if you get back to figuring out your great grandfather's line.
I was hoping you'd give a specific example of Jones, since it was displayed right in the center. My 2x Greats immigrated from Wales in 1850 and we're Jones', Thomas,' and Davies. They settled in Emporia KS, which was a big Welsh area. I've found their farm and other landmarks in Cardiganshire, and LOVED it!
There's not really anything to say about Jones beyond what is already in the video. It's a patronymic surname like the ones I explain in the video and it originates from the name John. Beyond that it's like any other Welsh surname.
@@GenealCymru But you don't touch on why it is so common.
Thank you. Very informative. My 6th great-grandfather Jacob Voyles (Voiles) in 1718 was the first of his line to be born in Denbighshire, Wales. His father,
Charles Victor Voyles (Voiles) b. 1685 had immigrated from France.
Been trying to put together my Father's Mother side Voyles. I have hit a blank finding my Grandmother Emma Jane Voyles married Blaine William Pope.
I never got to meet her. She died when I was young and I can't find where she is buried. Any help from Voyles family line would be greatly appreciated.
@@sondraferguson2452 Do you know where she lived and an approximate year of death?
Another source of the name Voyle comes from the Welsh word, ‘Foel’ which translates as, ‘Bald’ or, ‘Bare’. So a bald man or a man who owned owned bare ground may well have been given the name, ‘Foel’ which mutated into, ‘Voyle’ over the years.
Could you do a video on the imposition of names due to political/coercive motivations?
Great suggestion. It'll take quite a bit of research, but I've added it to my list. Thanks!
Ancestors: Reese Hughes b. 1620 Wales and John Michael Jones b. 1484 Wales. Still working on them gathering more information. I think there are a few more in my tree but can't recall them all at this minute. Glad I found this video. Thank you
Try Ancestry DNA
What a great video. I learned so much. Very well done.
Thank you.
New sub 👍
❤🇨🇦🌈
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
This really helps me a lot. I had traced my Lewis line back to Narberth, Pembrokeshire, Wales around 1682 or so then they came to American around the same time as William Penn and helped settle modern-day Pennsylvania. They later went to Virginia then lastly to Kentucky. This video helps answer so questions of some earlier documentation I had found with the long Welsh names similar to the ones presented in the video and now I know they may be valid and may be able to take my Lewis line back another few hundred years. Thanks.
@@annarussell3751 Took me 25 years to get past Virginia. When they burned the courthouses during the Civil War did not help. But tell him to look for great Uncles where the trail goes cold found my 8th GGfather living with his older brother but I had not added that brother so took me a while to really connect them.
@@kybullfrog76 Thank you!!
If you are a British Lewis you will have two choices as to its origin. English - it would have started centuries ago in Rome, moved to Germany as Ludwig, from there to France as Clovis where it changed again to Louis and finally to England as Lewis. Welsh - it would have been Llewellyn until Wales was conquered and things started to change. When records were kept for tax or other purposes, the scribe would have been English and he would not have been able to say, let alone write Llewellyn. But he would have known the name Lewis and that’s what gradually was written down. Some Llewellyn’s then used the new version and became Lewis.
@@kybullfrog76 Hey cousin..... (probably)
Jones here , all family members from KY . Prior to 1850-60s ? Was Virginia and still miners ! 😁 Jones have been miners in my family forever, idk exact years. But everyone, all the Jones males are miners.
My mother was a Thomas before she married. She was extremely proud of that name. Her grandmother's maiden name was Rhys, she was a cook at Dale castle in Wales. I visited near there in 2006. I took my nephew so he would remember his Welsh roots. I started to teach myself Welsh but found it too difficult without a person to converse with & things
Like Babbel don't have Welsh as an option. My father's family is also Welsh. One of his ancestors ran mining for the civil war governor of Ohio, A miner of Welsh origins.
Yeah learning a language without some place to use it is very very difficult. If you can find Welsh language music that you like, that's a really good place for your language skills to live in the absence of other people around you to talk with. Also very cool story about the mining ancestors. They shared a similar experience to a lot of Welsh migrants to the US.
Thomas also a Swedish surname.
Try Duolingo. They have Welsh.
Part of my family use the Thomason last name and others use Thomas . I'm not sure why
try "Say something in Welsh", very popular for learning Welsh.
Being of Welsh descent, I must say that I found your program very interesting. My surname Williams was mentioned, and then you mentioned Davies and Davis. Davis was my mother's maiden name. We always thought they were Scotch-Irish, but evidently there's more Welsh blood in the family than we thought. This bothers me not one bit; Welsh was good enough for King Arthur and Dylan Thomas, after all. Having traveled in Wales, I can recommend Cardiff as one of the neatest towns there ever was just to hang out in. Swansea, Tenby, and Holyhead all have their charms, too. In fact, I can recommend visiting England, Wales, and Scotland for the history and the people.
Glad you enjoyed! I was to Cardiff for a day a number of years ago. It was a beautifully sunny day visiting Cardiff Castle and then WHOOSH down came the rain and our umbrella broke so we had to hide under a tree. A very fun memory.
Dylan Thomas didn't speak Welsh.
Many Welsh went to Ireland so it's possible your ancestors went to Northern Ireland/Ulster as planters (if indeed they were 'Scotch-Irish'), and then on to the US a generation or so later. I'd also say that Americans seem to often claim Irish ancestry when they have a British surname and in many cases it's not Irish but Welsh, Scottish or English. For some reason in the US having Irish ancestry seems to be extremely sought after and the facts tend to get ignored, I mean who wants to claim English blood when the US fought the War of Independence against them, and as for Wales that might as well be Ireland for an American. I remember when I was at Uni in Wales my Northern Irish friend had met an American over the holiday and she sent him a letter, the letter arrived with an address of Glamorgan, Wales, IRELAND. 😂 That sums it up.
Oh very interesting and now I know why my Mother's side of the family has a 25 generation family chart. It is the two Welsh ancestors, one into Virginia in the 1600s, a Lewis and one in the 1870s, Williams, both from Brecon.
Knowing ones ancestors was important.
In my family I have Ragland, Morgan, Davies, Jones and Thomas. My ancestor, Evan Ragland, was shanghaied from a dock in England and sold into servitude in Virginia.
Great explanation of the surnames systems and how they came about and the transition from Patronymic to Hereditary. From my understanding from a distant cousin on my Mom's side which is Day is that we are Welsh and not Irish as the family lore had is believe. The DNA proved that to be the case as I know for sure on dad's side which is Goodman that we come from the southern part of England and it has been traced back to at least a couple of generations back across the pond. Both sides have been on Texas since 1850. The Days came from Alabama and were in South Carolina and originally Virginia and Maryland. I just have not been able to connect to the generation that got here from Wales and make that jump back across the pond and find our ancestors there. What are the best resources for searching on genealogy sites for Welsh ancestors?
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Yeah figuring out immigrant ancestors is a tough one that I haven't really had to deal with in my own family tree research. I've done some descendant research where I've found mentions of where they ended up in the US in the newspapers and journals, but that's only really possible for people who had money. If you're looking for information on what the Welsh records are like, I made a video called "Welsh Genealogy, Top 5 Record Sets" that can help with that.
King Henry VII's Welsh name was Harri ap Tedwr which became "Tudor" in English.
wasnt it hari tudur?
@@ejones8360 There are indeed two different spellings. The text below is a quote from Wikipedia:
"This name is sometimes given as Tewdwr, the Welsh form of Theodore, but Modern Welsh Tudur, Old Welsh Tutir is originally not a variant but a different and completely unrelated name, etymologically identical with Gaulish Toutorix, from Proto-Celtic *toutā "people, tribe" and *rīxs "king" (compare Modern Welsh tud "territory" and rhi "king"[respectively), corresponding to Germanic Theodoric."
And Harri is Henry in English and it’s why Harry became the name the likes of Prince Henry uses
@@Penddraig7 Harri the name apparently meant warror.
It wasn’t Harri ap Tedwr, his name wasn’t Harri ap any form of the name Tudor
Thank you very much for the information. Just dipping my toes into following the past. My grandfather was a Davis. Guess we are related far down the line. Appreciate your time and energy to inform us. Very Interesting and informative. Take Care.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed! I've got 5 different Davies lines, so there's definitely a chance we are related :)
@@GenealCymru My Edward Davis (1829-1872) came to America (c. 1840) as a Puddler and I've never been able to get any earlier info than that because there are so many Davis's. Are we related too?
I was told my great grandpa was of welsh decent. His name was Woodward? Another grandpa will named gumersall from gombersal england. Small village in Yorkshire. It was recorded as gumersall by immigration officials.
Thank you for covering the Rhys (Rees, Reese, Reece, Rice) family for I am a descendant of them.
@@irenejohnston6802 Yes correct. Those are the ones I could think of at that moment. Thanks for mentioning those.
Fitz Rys too!
Fellow Rice here. Up in maine. Checkout the Edmond Rice foundation in Massachusetts.
I just watched your Welsh surname video, but you didn't mention mine. My Owen family has been traced back to Samuel J Owen (b. 1796) of Middlesex, England, but have not been able to trace him to Wales. I do have 8% Welsh ancestry, per AncestryDNA. Samuel J Owen is my 3rd Great Grandfather.
Kia ora, this was very informative. My first British ancestor to arrive in New Zealand in 1825 was named John Thomas. His father was a highwayman, also named John Thomas. Who transported to Australia from Devon in 1800. Recent DNA testing has showed we have Welsh ancestry. The name Thomas seems to have been common in Southern Wales, which neighbours Devon. We were proud to discover our Welsh heritage. We have Maori heritage as well. Maori also keep extensive family records call Whakapapa, mine goes back over 1000 years. Hopefully one day we will get to explore beautiful Wales.
I'm glad you enjoyed. And thanks for sharing about the Whakapapa. I love hearing about experiences of family history across different places and cultural traditions.
Thank you for this! I am a Wynn and figuring out who is who when everyone has the SAME NAME makes genealogical research crazy-making. Your info was very helpful in explaining why.😊
Glad you found it helpful! Definitely check out some of my other videos too cause most of them are and will continue to be about various ways to get around the same/common names issue.
My name is Emyr Griffith Davies, born Bangor 1960, Welsh speaker born of English mother of Welsh/Scottish parentage. Father born of Welsh parents, his mother, a Jones from Pentrefelin North Wales, and father, a Davies from Merthyr Tydfil South Wales.
My grandmother was born Jessie John near Swansea and my grandfather was born Sidney Jenkins from Llynathlly now sure of the spelling.
My first name is Meredith. I was named after my great grandfather. Richard Meredith. (1834-).
He was from Virginia. His lineage came from Wales. However, I can't find any information about him. His wife was my great grandmother. Mary Flora. I'm working on the family tree and have gaps to fill in. Thanks.
Hopefully you'll find some use out of some of the research guide type videos I'm making as well. It can be challenging, but keep at it!
Try maridydd the th is anglicised and the å and ė sounds are interchangeable
It was very nice to see this video and history. Fortunately my family has a extensive record of ancestry and surnames, and combined with the internet websites available, and lineage from other cousins and distant relatives, the lineage connects and makes such a vast record. I’m able to combine from a 3rd cousin in the family search, which has the Mormon records too.
Going back much further than I’d ever dreamed. I subscribed and will follow your videos.
My dads family were from England, Scotland and Wales, (Wallace, Glenn, Hughes, Baty, Winston, Burton, Woodson, Marshall, Vaughn, with a few others from the German, Austrian, France and Italy. Stumpf, Zimmerman,
Very cool. Glad that you've found so many resources for your research!
Interesting video. I have a small amount of Welsh ancestry in various lines. Some of my Welsh ancestors were living in Shropshire but very close to the border with Wales (in places where almost all the people had Welsh names). One of the families goes from ap Evan in the mid-1600s through Beavan, ap Beavan, Bevan and even one Ab-Evans up to the early 1700s, with all of them interchangeable. So, for example, a Peter Beavan born mid-1600s in Chirbury, had children with the surnames Beavan, ap Evan, Bevan, ap Evan, Bevan, Ab-Evans and Bevan.
One of my 4xG grandfathers was called Evan Evans, from Llanbister, but lived most of his life in Welshpool, and finding out anything about his origins is very difficult. Searching for Evan Evans in Wales is like searching for John Smith in England.
I had the same problem with my Great Grandmother, Jane Jones, but a mistake on one of the censor forms helped a lot, I was just browsing through different streets, remembering what my Grandmother told me, I saw someone of the right age group called Jenny Jones. It turned out that it should have been Jane E Jones, got her.😃 I was able to go back two more generations, revealing some very interesting history. Checking marriage certificates etc.
My Great Great Grandad used to live in the Big house which is now the Botanical Gardens in Carmarthen... He was a "Bit of a Lad" from what ive found out about him, having a few Ilagitamate children etc.. He just upped and left for the Goldrush over in the States and never returned.. I have an Aunt and Cousins living in Ohio and Alaska due to his Shenanigans! lol.!
I live in Llanelli, Im a Griffiths... My House dates back to the 1700's (It used to be a Pub)..
Thanks for the video..
Take care..
Oh wow. Sounds like a very interesting person to research
Names like Pritchard, Prowse, Preece and Probert are relics of the old system: the initial ‘P’ is what is left of ‘(M)ap’ - the equivalent of the Gaelic ‘Mac’ (son of).
Indeed. Fascinating how something so simple such as names can change.
This is what I struggle with, being a Pritchard… we can trace back to when the family arrived in Wisconsin, we know where they came from- Caernavon, but can’t find birth or marriage records- so was he Richard AP Richard and Robert AP Richard? So confusing!
My grandfather was named David John Morgan. We only realized recently that he was full Welsh and I’m just beginning to understand where we came from. Looking forward to learning more!
Oh yes, you'll find there are many David John Morgans in Wales (my 7x Great Grandfather was one hehe). I hope you enjoy learning about Wales and your heritage!
I am an English-born Davies, living in Cardiff, Wales. Davies is the most common surname here, surpassing Jones, etc. Interestingly, Davies is often mispronounced in England as Dave-eez, but all the Davies' I've met over my life pronounce it as Davis, as do you. I mostly worked in England, but only met a Davis (spelling) later in life, showing that Davis is not the English spelling and Davies the Welsh. I hadn't realised how late the naming system was adopted in Wales. Kerno Boy's comments are interesting, regarding the Cornish surnames.
I also used to think that Davies was the Welsh spelling and Davis the English/American spelling. But then I found one of my ancestors born in 1754 in rural Cardiganshire was a Davis. I was like hmmm that's interesting. The latest I've seen in my family for adopting the hereditary system was the late 1850s. I mention it briefly in my most recent long-form video on surnames.
I have rarely heard people use Dave-eez in England and the most famous people in the UK with those names such as Alan or Greg are always referred to as Davis.
My last name is Lewis, one of the names you mentioned early in the video. My sister and I have tracked it to Glamorganshire Wales.
see that surname in the local Judah///Jew cemetary boyo.
My father was born in Shropshire and his father was Welsh. The surname we have is Powell. I wish I knew more about the Welsh side of my family. I think my grandfather was from the Vale of Glamorgan originally. Thank-you for sharing the history of Welsh names. It’s an interesting subject.
My great grandfather came from Wales. Powell
The name Powell comes from the old patronymic system, eg. Dafydd ap Hywel, which later would have become Dafydd Powell, Dafydd ap Rhys would have become Dafydd Price, Dafydd ap Huw became Dafydd Pugh, Rhisiart (Richard) became Pritchard, ap Owen became Bowen and there are others.
The Powell's originally hywel are of the grail lineage the holy grail bloodline came into Wales after the crucifixion around 35ad jesus is buried in wales and the ark of the covenant is in Wales
@@johnlewis9745 Thanks for the explanation- some I knew, others I didn't. I have a Powell in my FT and now know where it derived. Also I have Lewis. Do you know where that comes from?
@@craigmoyle2924 news to me...
My last name is Travis William Edwards, and I am an American. My Great Uncle, an attorney, was involved in a law suite and Manhattan NYC. The suite alleged our family were the rightful heirs to the Queens Farme in Manhattan. Do you think we were from Wales, and also related to the Tudors? I have a hard time deciding, but I am very interested to find out.
Edwards is either from Wales or England. It's similar to Evans, Williams, etc. You'd have to do your family history to see where exactly it's from though. And as for the Tudors, maybe? I'm sure there are people with links to them, but again, you'd have to prove those links with the records.
Hello, Travis! My middle name is Edward, a nod to my maternal side. I do know the Edwards were land-grant recipients(@Sparta, N.C.(Timber was King during that time-period, more valuable than gold!!)! Annie Edwards-Perry was a great-aunt of mine. The truth to the Manhatten Law-suit is, many claim owner-ship, a few are true, but thanks to scammer-real-estate deals coupled w/tax crazy city officials( a hundred+ years ago) it is cost prohibitive( in short, you would spend faaar mor$$ to attempt proof of ownership, than the land would be worth, even @ today's land prices)(They busted it into a thousand plots, and sold it, so, you would first have to prove it was"stolen", then sue each individual. I found a couple of very informative stories on Google/ T.V. Also, out of 37,500 original land grant on Va./N.C. border, less than approx 3500 acres remain spread through family now.(and the family is large.) But tracing family tree is worthwhile, just to know history. Good Luck!!
I’ve struggled doing ancestry family tree, not for my mum’s family that goes back to 1400 but southern England, however grandma Davies family that was a struggle because of all the continuing surnames and forenames being so similar. Soon as it got to Wales that is where the family tree ends.
I definitely suggest taking a look at some of the other videos on my channel. There's tons of them that help with Welsh genealogy specifically. And just in terms of expectations, getting to the 1400s for Wales is very, very difficult, so I'd say focus on figuring out the early 1800s. The 1700s, I've found, doesn't have the best records, especially if you're unable to get into the physical archives.
My grandfather was a Davies and lord it’s hard to find stuff
My gran was a Davies too, her grandad was from Swansea.
Thank you for this information I’ve been researching my family in the USA to the 1600’s with the Welsh name Jones. I am trying to see if I can find my family in Wales. I know I need to find the manifest when they came over.
Very cool. I wonder if there are surviving manifests from that far back? Eventually I'm definitely going to make a video about tracing back to Wales from whatever place our ancestors migrated to. It's not something I've looked into much yet myself, but it'll make for some interesting research
@@GenealCymru in the USA during the civil war General William Sherman marched on the south and burned all the courthouses anything that was saved in these buildings were burned that was before 1863. My family landed in Yorktown VA in 1650. Williamsburg library research department suggested that I look for the manifest that they would have been coming over on. I don’t know the name of the ship or the port they came from. Would be interesting to find out.
Actually, "Daniels" is a Welsh name too! 👍
Our surname is Cadogan and I'm 3rd generation Australian. I tried years age doing our family tree but when I got to my great great grandfather things got complicated, I worked some of it out but ended up taking a brake from it for a few years.
Well you're clearly from the city of Cardigan, which would be pronounced Cadogan in an Australian accent! I'm from there as well, and highly recommend you go visit if you can. It's a fabulous area! Unfortunately the local records office has closed and everything has been digitized and centralized in Aberystwyth. I had previously had great success with the local registrar at Cardigan, but when I returned a few years ago I was devastated not to have access to the original books. I had no luck dealing with the digital records at all.
The surnames I have found in my tree are from Flintshire: Hooson, Roberts, Parry, Price; and from Breconshire/Monmouthshire: Prothero, Prosser, Whitance, so far. Interesting video.
Our family name is Lake. My grandfather was from Usk (Brynbuga)
So glad I found your channel!
Welcome!
Please consider subscribing to catch upcoming videos that are similar to this one... Welsh History Explained: Religion; Welsh History Explained: Migration; Traditional Welsh Naming Patterns; Wales and the World: Madagascar; Wales and the World: Argentina; Wales and the World: USA; and many more.
Will do, you have created one of the better videos on TH-cam about Welsh Geneology.
Hello
My last name is Penley.
Guess there is a village outside of Wrexford that shares that name??🤔
My 12x great grandfather was Richard Phillips born 1470 Clisant Castle, Cilsant, St. Clears Dyfed Parish, Carmarthenshire, Wales
Qaà
Jones here, my dad came from a long time farming family in rural Kentucky. I live in Ohio, where I grew up.
Very interesting and thanks for posting. I recently discovered that two of my Welsh great grandfathers were called William Williams and Owen Owens which perhaps suggests a certain tradition - or a lack of imagination.
Yes, mine was Thomas Thomas. When tracking down genealogy, my aunt got stumped when she ran into 14 Thomas Thomases in Swansea all born around the same time!
@@anncoxwell7015 Nightmare ❤️😄
@@anncoxwell7015 My father's father was named Thomas, his eldest son was Thomas, My Uncle Tom, My mothers sister married a Thomas they had a son named Thomas, I married a Thomas, I had a son, We named him Mark.😃
I have several Edward Edwards! It's driving me mad!
@@iriscollins7583 There’s an additional ‘fun’ tradition:
1st son is named after child’s father
2nd son: Father’s first brother
3rd soon: Father’s second brother
Etc etc etc
Some families seemed to do this routinely, some not at all…maybe those more inclined to actively want to keep to tradition as so much was changing around them? Sometimes (they ran out of paternal uncles? Black sheep? Mom’s family lived nearby?) they might have pulled from mom’s or extended family which I could tell due to an unusual name. I’m also running into the possibility that cousins named children after my GG-grandfather’s bardic name!
This is very interesting and informative. Thank you.
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed!
I have Welsh ancestry on my paternal side on, My ancestors were Wogan Williams Phillipps Hughes Davies Davis Thomas Howell Evans Lloyd Vaughan Morris Griffith Lewis, and Roberts, and Jenkins.
Vaughans are buried in Brecon Cathedral down by the Havard capel. and Wogans are on the maternal side decended from the illegitimate daughter of William( I )the bastard. of Normandy.
@@Morgan2XL sorry i haven't been on ancestry, this month since i am busy on celebheights quora, and youtube.
I also have Williams
Excellent. I thought I was a quarter Welsh for most of my life, but discovered maybe not but its left an affinity for Wales.
Our family (Davis) first ancestor to come here to America from wales was Rev William Davis changed from Davies at some point. My maiden last name is Davis ☺️ so interesting
That’s great cuz I wasn’t telling you jerk
That's really cool! Do you know what part of Wales Rev. William Davis was from? (also, don't worry about the rude reply you got. They won't be doing any more commenting around here :) )
Mine as well!
Any suggestions for tracing Welsh lineage? I think my maternal grandfather’s ancestors (“Wigfield”) may have emigrated from Wales in the early 18th century but can find no connection before his arrival in the America.
I have a couple videos out already that show some different strategies I use, so I'd recommend those. More are always in the works. My direct Welsh family left Wales in 1965, so I haven't really had to do the thing you're trying to figure out (finding the connection from the Americas to Wales). I mostly go the opposite direction: I'll find someone far back who was born in Wales and then have to find them later living in the Americas and that has its own challenges.
For such a tiny country, they really birthed a LOT of VERY common surnames!
Indeed. Many people are under the impression that there arent many Welsh surnames. But that isn't true. In proportion to its size, Its actually quite alot.
It's not the size it's how you use it my grandpa used to say . David Davey Davis ap David Davison Davies aka dai Bach.
Hi, I know it’s a year after you have posted this, but I wanted to say Evan Davis is a name in my tree along with many other Welsh names. ❤ Thanks for posting this, it’s super helpful!!
No worries! I always make sure to respond in some way to people who take the time to leave a comment :) Glad you enjoyed and found it useful!
Our surname is Boliver which comes from ab/ap Oliver. Our branch swapped the ab/ap in 1730 to become Bolivers. Other branches lost it completely and are just Oliver's now. I have never thought of Oliver as a particularly Welsh associated name so I shall have a look into the origin of that name.
Most of the Bolivers I've traced were born across the border in Shropshire although most of the ancestral names are very Welsh. The furthest back I've gone genetically is to a 9th cousin once removed who is an Oliver whose family went to America. Our nearest common ancestor was Hugh ap Oliver born 1620 (in Shropshire). I haven't been able to trace further back than this but your channel has given me some good hints about where to start again.
I once knew a woman with the maiden name "Dolliver," which apparently was a Welsh derivative of the Norman French name "d'Olivier." There were two major Norman invasions of Wales, in 1083 and 1204.
@@kevinkelly1586 that's really interesting. Someone in my family has always said we are descended from the Normans and I've never known how they knew!
My great grandfather came from Wales to upstate New York. His name was Thomas Thomas. I’ve tried to follow the line back in Wales but there are thousands of people in the Thomas line. Your video was very interesting!
Yeah and all those Thomas' in Wales aren't even related aha. Making that jump across the ocean with the research can be really difficult.
I worked with a man named Thomas Thomas, Jr.
@@WhatAWonderfulNameItIs my whole family is full of Thomas Thomases
@@sanji1701 I have had the same issue. In the mid-1800s there were several Thomas Thomases born in Swansea, all within a year or so of each other. Sorting them is just about impossible !
@@anncoxwell7015 I think I can eliminate anyone highly educated. My grandfather, Gordon Wesley Thomas said that his family came from coal miners. I wish I could talk to him and ask a lot more questions.
wow, this is fascinating! thank you for sharing! my mum’s DNA tested as welsh (mine did not) and we have a jones line on her side that i can find in liverpool before emigrating to the US in the 1890s, but i’ve always wondered if we have any welsh further up that line! also, i find your voice very relaxing to listen to 🙏🏼
Further down, many Welsh people would often settle in England a generation or two before leaving for America. This is what makes many North Americans believe they are solely English. When many are a mix.
I have Jones from Carnarvonshire, Wales. My great grandfather’s Welsh bible with his handwritten notations was a fascinating item when I was a child. I don’t know what happened to it, sadly.
I hope one day you find it. My Grampie's cousin has a family Bible that was owned by my 3x grandparents. There's lots of neat stuff in it.
I am a Jones from North Wales too, dont live there now, family all moved a little bit to England with the industrial revolution
One point to note regarding the Anglicization of surnames is the traditional Welsh alphabet does not include the letters V and J which excludes the spelling of surnames Jones and Evans from being Welsh. The letter F in the Welsh alphabet is pronounced as you would the letter V whilst FF would give you the traditional sound of the English letter F.
I have heard that Jones is formed from Yəhôḥānān), Johan to JOHN or JON from the bible but as said here AP was commonly the first bit of the name and as no J was available Si was sometimes used as it is a close approximation to sh as in show,or The sound generated from ‘Si-‘ in Siôn is a Welsh approximation of the English ‘J’ sound that doesn’t exist natively to the language (refer to Irish Seán), equivalent to the English ‘Sh’ such as in “shed.” so Jones was sometimes spelled AP Sion, and son of, added the S. (Bloody Normans) When anglicised again it became JONES after the AP was dropped.
@@SuperSrjonesThanks, this made a lot of sense to me. I husband’s Welsh extended family are all Joneses.
Evans could be the anglicised version of Ifans.
I've got John, Jones, Morgan, Bodycombe amongst many others mainly Glamorgan area
Hi, a Williams here. Welsh ancestry. I recall a poem I heard years ago about the naming of the welsh people. The first line is 'Williams, Baker, Smith, and Jones...' Does any one recall hearing this? A quick google reveals nought.
One of the Irish Williams’ here. When we visited we used to walk down a certain road until we came to a house and garden covered in Carnations.
Cornish, Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Norwegian here lol.
My grandmother was a Smith from Machnylleth area
@@McCRBen When I was in Washington DC, a couple of years ago, I picked up an Irish Williams coat of arms key ring, from an Irish shop. Pretty pleased with that. I am sad or what?
Greetings, another Welsh Williams here.
Maddox (Madoc) is my surname. Records show that my 3x Great Grandfather (also a Maddox) arrived to Virginia USA on a boat sailing under the British flag that had departed from Scotland, but he was of Welsh origin. Have you any ideas of regions in Wales where the Maddox (Madoc) name was prevalent during the period of 1800-1850 or in this present time as well or has our name completely vanished from the area?
I don't have a specific answer for your question. But Madox is derived from a patronymic like most Welsh surnames, so it originated in all parts of Wales. It's not like many English surnames where they started in one place and then spread by people moving away from that area. Since it's from a Welsh-language name, there's a chance it might be less common across Wales, but I don't know how helpful it'd be for actually finding your ancestors in Wales. My other video, The Truth about Your Welsh Surname explains how this works a bit more and you might find it interesting.
Thank you so much for your reply and for making this delightful content!
A lot of old coal mining towns in the Mid West USA are still woefully short on their Welsh ancestry and focus much more on the Italian side of things.
Im not sure it's just my theory that Welsh and Italians often look similar and the Welsh and Italian flags have the same colours.
I lived in Clinton Indiana throughout the 90s and it was me that informed the locals including the town Mayor of they're Welsh heritage.
So now on the Labour Day weekend festival known as "the little Italy festival " in Clinton, the Jonses,Davis's, Llewellyns and Evans all all display the Welsh flag on their porches. Also the town has included the Red Dragon flag in the town fountain display. 💚❤
Yeah identity is complicated matter and there's a lot that goes into it beyond blood/DNA/descent. Nice to know that people are finding an interest in their Welsh history though :) I've traced quite a few of my ancestors to the US who went for mining. I've got one that went to Pittsbourgh around 1800 (probably as a Baptist minister though), but I haven't been able to find him in the US records yet. It can be really hard to make that connection across the ocean.
@@GenealCymru yes its more of a fading of knowledge tthan a sinister plot.
As you well know , even today Wales is not a household name the way Scotland and Ireland are.
The house I lived in in Clinton was the 1st residential house built in that town , next door to the original pig farmers .
Two families from Wales Davis and Reese were joined by a marriage and went on to donate land for the library which they did again in the late 1990s to expand , in fact they donated or sold extremely cheaply the house and land next door to tgr library , ( in other words prime real estare) .
My uncle is a Davis and his son is Reese , carrying on the old tradition. My great uncle waz an architectural Historian and professor and when he grew up in that house during the 30s up to the 60s it was a Welsh speaking houshold.
I waz very surprised to be greeted by him in fluent Welsh 🙂
I have been told that I have some Welsh ancestry somewhere along the line, but I don't know where. You mentioned my surname, Rice, which originated in County Louth, Ireland. I also have ancestors from Norway, the Scarborough family, who sailed to Iceland in 865, and were the original settlers of Iceland, and then sailed to England in 930. They also owned The Mayflower, the ship that the pilgrims sailed to America on. I also have other English ancestors, the Stanley family.
The Name Rice is a derivation on the Welsh Rhys I believe. Many links from Wales to Ireland down the centuries. Many Welsh soldiers settled in Ireland after the Norman attacks. This is where you get surnames such as Rice, Walsh, Branigan, And Griffin from. So more than likely you have Welsh ancestry due to the name and no doubt have Irish as they would have mingled.
Rhys is definitely Welsh, one of the most famous Welsh rulers was Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, a 12th century king.
My 3 grandfather Thomas came from Wales to the U.S. approximately 1854.That’s the date he purchased property. Census say he was born in So. Wales. Haven’t been able to find any information on him before 1854.
My husband’s Williams family says they are Welsh, but haven’t found any information before 1810 when they were early settlers in Kentucky, U.S.
I hope you figure it out one day. I'm lucky in the sense that my family left Wales in 1965, so I haven't had to do the tough work of connecting people outside Wales to the records of them back in Wales. I'm not sure how it compares to finding people in Wales and having to find them in the US or Australia, which I've had to do a couple times.
I married a Jones a relative of Benoni Jones who has a plaque in Massachusetts as a survivor of a massacre. He is decended from Griffith Jones who came to America in 1635. He was from Frongoch Merionwethshire. He is mentioned in History of the Connecticut Valley. His mother was Margaret Jane Griffith sister of Henry 1st Baronet of Burton Agnes.
My 3x great-grandfather on my mother's side, Thomas Price, came to the U.S. from Margam in the 1840's.
Da iawn.
What can you tell me about the name Rhys? An ancestor of mine who was French married a woman named Rose Rhysse but it turns out she may have come from the town in Flanders called Rhysse which was the original place name of Lille, France. Was the name brought to Wales?
Interesting. Rhys is one of the patronymic surnames coming from the first name Rhys. I'm pretty sure it had an original meaning of "Champion" in Wales. There were Welsh leaders names Rhys all the way back over 1000 years ago, so it's probably just the case that a similar name also originated in France too.
Always been told I have English, Irish, Scottish & Welsh DNA on dad’s side ... with family-tree surnames that read as evidence of this ... but ‘23nMe’ only identifies English & Irish- why is his or what DNA company/service would you recommend?
I think that the important thing to note is that surnames don't equate to DNA. They might suggest a certain historical experience across generations, but that isn't the same as DNA. I honestly don't think there's a lot of value in doing DNA tests, so I don't have any recommendations. Sorry to not be of more help.
DNa services are shady. They often throw Welsh genetics in with Irish and English. Despite never connecting Irish and English. It make no sense at all...well, unless you're up to no good.
Take genetic results as works in progress, not certainties. They report the results as their genetic research indicates, and results vary by data set.
@@jwsoaresjones1560And as DNA databases expand as more and more people use them, the results change. If there are gaps in a database’s knowledge, the algorithm won’t reflect reality.
My family name is Price and we originate from Brecon (Brecknock) my English mother’s maiden name is Preece. I have wondered if their was an historic connection between these two names - Does anyone know?
Your intuition is correct. Price and Preece are both variations of each other, originating from "ap Rhys," or son of Rhys.