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: ruclips.net/video/0a6eognNi-M/видео.html Explaining Welsh First Names: ruclips.net/video/SMPNF8V-140/видео.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!
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.
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.
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 ..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👍🏿🇬🇧🇳🇬🇨🇦🏴
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 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!
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 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.
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.
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).
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! :)
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?
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 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!
@@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."
Family names are rare in my country (Iceland). We all get a first name and and then are specified by the first name of our father! I am a son, my first name is Hálfdan, my father's first name is Ingólfur and I am officially Hálfdan Ingólfsson. My sister's name is María, and she is officially Maria Ingólfsdóttir. This is an old Norse tradition.One has to be thick not to realize that 'son' means son and 'dottir' means daughter. By the way, my sister María remains María Ingólfsdóttir even if she married a nice guy named Ásgeir Ásgeirsson decades ago. There is a modern twist: Anna Sveinsdóttir (Anna, daughter of wife-and-child-beating Svein and his beleagured wife Þórdís) is bound to change her name to Anna Þórdísardóttir once she reaches her majority. The point: We remain individuals and are linked to out kin by first name throughout our lives.
I worked on my friend's tree last year and her ancestors were from Þingeyjarsýsla. Once they came to Canada, the name Arason was the one that ended up sticking as their hereditary surname. Her 3x Grandfather was an Ari. The Icelandic online records were pretty cool to look through. Also thanks for sharing about Icelandic naming practices!
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.
The difficulty as you may have said with Welsh surnames is that technically people could have English origin surnames but have no actually English ancestry because Wales adopted their system. So an English first names often became a surname In Wales. This is why you have names like Johns aswell as Jones. So another words people shouldn't jump to conclusions if you have an English surname where Wales is concerned. You just may be Welsh, not English.
Good point. I am a Johns and my father was a Welshman. However, in trying to trace his fathers ancestry we found some interesting facts about the name which threw us in a loop. For instance, we thought the family was from North Wales where father was born. Turns out Johns is a Southern name, with links to Cornwall. It looks like there may be a connection to Pembrokeshire, but it’s hard to factually confirm.
This is directly taken from “Who do you think you are” quote The three most common Cornish surnames are Williams, Richards and Thomas. This preponderance of Welsh sounding surnames has often led to the mistaken belief (at least outside Cornwall), that if you bear such a name then you must be of Welsh descent, when certainly in the mining areas of Northern England, your family are as likely to have originated in Cornwall. Due to the vast numbers of Cornish migrants in the copper, lead and coal mines of Wales, there are no doubt many Welsh families unaware that the origin of their very Welsh surname may have been in Cornwall.
@@kernowboy137 I have often wondered how much interaction there was between Cornwall and Wales in earlier times, seeing that their respective languages would have been mutually intelligible.
Yeah I have a few ancestors with a Welsh surname, lol. Back in the noughties I got interested in genealogy, so I spent a bit of time having my DNA tested, I didn't group with Irish people, literally found a most recent ancestor match with a Welsh person to about 20 generations.
I've got little to prove anything, but by family tradition my x3 grandfather came from Wales and the sir name is Maughan (pronounced Mon). We laugh and say, well it has more letters than needed to get the point across so it must be Welsh.
Its the Irish spelling of Morgan, a royal Welsh name that was anglicised from Morcant. Said to have been the name of King Arthwys Ap Muerig's son. The real King Arthur.
@@taffyducks544 I'd just like to say 'thank-you' for the contributions to comments etc. that you make. You are everywhere! I'm learning lots about my Welsh heritage. I've only been researching my FT for a few years and am enjoying learning about the history of Wales, too. I am a first generation (senior) Australian of Welsh parents. Sadly I wasn't told much and didn't ask about my heritage when younger and my parents are long gone. I do know that a taffy is a Welshman, though. My DNA says that I am 70% Welsh ancestry and I'm proud of that. I've visited Wales, in a rush, and before I started to research my FT, and will return again in the next couple of/ few years.
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.
In 1536, Henry viii, despite being the son of a Welshman , passed two anti Welsh laws: He banned the use of ap/ab and banned the use of the Welsh language in the courts.
Yep, when he took the English throne, it was arguably the biggest disaster in Welsh history. His father was proud of his Welsh ancestry and wouldn't do anything to jeopardise Wales. His son however wasn't much like him.
@@celtspeaksgoth7251 We are still part of England, unfortunately, that’s why we have no representation on the Union Flag. We had been part of England, de facto, for nigh on 250 years, apart from a few uprisings.
Very cool. And I totally agree. I ultimately started the channel because there's just not much info on Wales on RUclips especially beyond Medieval history. 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.
I became aware of patronymics when I started researching my family tree around 1988. I was more than a bit confused at the time. Eventually I got back to Richard ap Gibbon of Trecastle. His first son was Evan ap Richard and his son was Richard ap Evan and this alternated for about 8 more times over 400 years or so until the family settled on Prichard (of Collena) as a permanent surname. That took some sorting out. It is a very excellent video. I shall recommend it. Thanks.
Very interesting. I've got a line of Evan Davids and David Evans' that's kinda like that. It can be nice when they put their full names on the documents so you get like 4 or 5 generations in a single name. Sometimes it feels like everyone but my ancestors did that haha. Glad you enjoyed :)
Williamson was the English take on The Germanic/Norman Wilhelm, etc. Williams generally denotes a link to the tradition of the Welsh keeping the single S rather than the son.
My maiden surname is Jenkins, which I think is a Welsh name. At this point I have very little history. Only that my paternal Grandfather was Isaac Jenkins, born in Belfast Ireland. He immigrated to Canada in the early 1900’s. Thoroughly enjoyed your video and have subscribed. Thank you.
Joan Young. Many people moved to Scotland and Northern Ireland to work on the shipbuilding sites. Many coal miners moved to Wales from Durham and the Midlands to work in the coal mines of Wales so there are lots of names from all over the country in Wales.
My mum's mother's maiden name was Williams. They were coal miners from Anglesey who moved to the South Lancashire (Ashton in Makerfield) coalfield when the north Wales pits were exhausted in the late 19thC.
Very cool. There's been some other people around the channel with mining ancestors from Anglesey too. I really don't get enough chances to research North Wales. It's very interesting.
@@GenealCymru my 99 year old mum is, thankfully, still with us. Her mother died when mum was six (and her brother, one) from a back street abortion - pretty common then. Her father was a drunk and so mum left home to live with an aunt in Bolton. Her brother, my uncle (also still with us) had to endure living with his father until he could escape into the army by lying about his age. My mum was allocated work building Lancaster bomber wings during WW2. They lived remarkable and difficult lives.
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 🙂
Hello!! Dalton here!! In following Dalton tree, found surprise. Dalton (people of the valley) being more English, yet my "way-back" grand-mother Mary( who by desire or circumstance, had several children) and despite being "street-oriented" was actually a daughter of an "arranged" marriage to English nobility, and also grand-daughter of Willam the Conquerer's illigitimate half-sister. Mary, being very opportunistic, married a Dalton stationed as military gov in Normandy(Northern France??) Had her last son( my 'xxxxx' grand-father) by him. When her husband fell deathly ill, she and 12 y.o. son, in several quick trips, packed up anything of immediate cash value, skipped back/ forth across English Channel. Dalton family "banished the little strumpet" on last trip(she left them only furniture and house) She/her son returned to her home village in England, where she died @78(very old for that time). She was a warrior. But, I was surprised to find that her mother was daughter of William's half-sister. I suppose that may be where her fighting spirit originated.
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.
I have 3 families from Tennessee before 1820 I was told were Welsh. The surnames were Smith, Jones, and Bandy. Plus a Baird family which was Scottish. These 4 families moved together to Illinois and apparently intermarriaged for several generations. My great grandmother was a Jones and married a Smith. It made it hard to find more of the line for years. It was because of finding her father-in-law who had married a Baird that I was able to make a break through on these ancestors.
That's awesome that you found them though. I was stuck on one of my 5x grandmas for ages until I found an unknown son's death announcement and then traced him to when he was living with her brother. Sometimes it just takes researching around the person we're stuck at.
So that's why when my grandma said that if I go to a pub in Wales and they kick everyone out not named Williams I won't feel so special when 3/4 of us are still there.
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.
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.
Surnames used in Wales would be a more appropriate Title since most names like Williams. Thomas, Jones, Roberts amongst many others are not Welsh names by heritage but Norman English Many original Welsh names have been Anglicised/ Griffiths, Davies, Meredith Rees but are real Welsh names just differently, or should we say, incorrectly spelt.
Perhaps. However, this video is less about the names and more about the social practices that turned names into surnames, and those are uniquely Welsh social practices. It was Welsh people, Welsh culture, and Welsh history that turned David into Davies, William into Williams, John into Jones, etc. And I think that's important to recognize.
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.
I am from the Sons of AODH Clan. David Davies from Glamorgan Wales 1765, who most likely came from the Dal Cassians in Ireland. M222 Genetics --> R-FT132323, Uí Fiachrach, Cenél Feradaig Dathíi the last pagan King of Ireland. (there are only two of us on this branch --> my father Dan Hall Davis and I, Shane Patrick Davis)
Hi great vidfeo thanks posting it. I do think there are severalvery important historical events your missing. Your focus heavily on the gradual cultural shift due to the proximty of English culture. For instance surnames growing in use specifically because of property rights and making inheritane. Patryonimc naming system,s in wales are extremely important in Welsh medival inheritance law. going back to the early medeival period ie 600-800 C.E. Under welsh law the king's (under other land owners) lands (maertref) were required to be divided among all of his acknowledged sons by whatever mother on their death. Ending this system went along withe English conquest of by Edward 1st in the mid 13th century and the destruction of the remainaing welsh royal houses of Gweynedd and others.
I read somewhere that in Wales people often added an "s" at the end of their father's name (Evan > Evans) to indicate this person was "the son of....(Evan)" This theory would seem to mesh well with the history you present in this video where you say that (starting in the 1600s) the Welsh were often pressured to shorten their long patronymic names to just ONE name; adding a possessive "s" would allow them to hang onto their tradition of honoring their father by condensing "ab Evan" into the single possessive word "Evans" (perhaps leaving off the word "son" to avoid sounding Danish/Nordic -- heaven forbid!) Have you come across anything like this theory in your research? There DO seem to be a lot of Welsh surnames ending in what could be seen as a possessive "s"!
That is correct...this is why you have so many names that have the son on, and just the singular S. Son tends to show Nordic ancestry within the British Isles (tends to be more common in England and Scotland). Whereas the Singular S suggests a Brittonic (Welsh) connection.
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.
Interesting. My family has several Welsh names like Powell, Price, Williams, Robins, Thomas, Howell,Evans,as well as Scottish and English and German surnames and settled initially in the Carolinas, and Georgia. I believe they were dissenters and came for religious reasons.
Very cool. I've also got quite a few dissenters through my tree. I've actually just started working on a script about Religious nonconformity in Wales this morning so that will come out at some point in the new year.
After doing basic research on my surname I read that the e-r-y ending of my surname was a Welsh version of the more common r-e-y version of the name. I can't identify any branch of my family with any obvious connection to Wales so the "Welsh Twist" is a mystery to me. BTW I DO understand the ease at which names can be heard wrong and therefore transcribed incorrectly. Even close friends pluralize my last name to e-r-y-s. I put this down to the Mandela Effect!
I've never heard of Jeffery being of Welsh descent. Its not a common surname in Wales at all (I live here, in the videoclip, my house is on the hills just out of shot of the castle (Caerphilly castle)) and only ever known two, "Jeffreys"). . I wouldn't read too much into the spelling, up until about 150-100 years ago most people were illiterate, so wouldn't know how to spell their own surname, whoever wrote it down took their best guess at what they heard,.if you look at the UK census which started in the early 19th century, you'll often find the spelling change from one to another.
@@philldavies7940 Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I am in agreement with you that we were not great at spelling in the day and not much better at transcribing. Cheers.
My name is Davis ..I can trace my first ancestor who came to the shores of Ireland in the 12th century ...his name was David Davy ..my wife name is o Brien ..she has traced her ancestors back over 1800 years in Kerry......
You said very little about the surname Evans. My sister's last name is Evans and they were of the opinion that they were Irish (their father had an Irish dad and black mother). I couldn't find any name originality regarding the name Evans until I saw it listed in your video. I wanted to know if it is indeed Irish or Welsh.
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.
My mother`s family are Kendricks/ Kenrick`s/ Kenwrick`s/ Cynric`s, from Cynric and Cerdic, which I have probably spelled wrong. Enjoyed your presentation. Thanks.
Hi, I’m an American who has found out my father’s father Robert Roberts was from Caernarvon, his father John Roberts & Mary Davies were from Y Gyffin, Conway District, Caernarvonshire. It looks like this side was only near the sea in Gwynedd. Thank you
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?
I was married to a Thomas from Knutsford so this has been so invaluable. I've studied my Irish heritage to Connaught, Grange. Which is a place name in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
Cool. I find my ancestors every once in a while ended up in Australia and they sure did love to take their place names with them! I had one couple go there in the late 1800s, they named their Australian farm after their Welsh one. Then they returned to Wales 20 years later and moved into a new farm that they called Westralia after Western Australia I suppose!
My mother's family has been in America since before the revolutionary war but they include Rice/Reece/Rhys and Bevins but I never knew where they came from originally. Looking forward to following them to Wales.
That's awesome. I hope you have a good time of crossing the ocean! The research can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, but keep at it and you'll figure it out!
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.
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
So French/English colonisers and British tax are the reasons why hereditary surnames exist in Wales, Interesting and unsurprising smh. My name is Williams, Ive always wondered why so many slaves were forced to have that name? My family is from Jamaica 🇯🇲 but I know that colonisers/slavemasters of welsh descent are the reason why my family are called Williams and trigger warning ⚠️ I’m probably part Welsh too due to rape during that time obviously) Plus I also know that Jamaica existed as a colony before Britain as a concept did. Jamaica was an English colony from 1655 (when it was captured by the English from Spain), and a British Colony from 1707 until 1962, when it became independent. Wales 🏴 became a part of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
Yes, you are correct. Wales played a big role in British colonialism and slavery. The very landscape, from infrastructure to urbanization, etc., all throughout Britain is tied to enslavement. There's some videos on that upcoming. Also, if you're interested in researching your Jamaican ancestry, "Jamaican Genealogy Resources" on Facebook is probably the best group of any type on the site. They're incredibly welcoming and helpful and have tons of resources collected. Also, if you're ever looking for someone to do some genealogy work for you, I offer free work for black Jamaicans.
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 nan came to Canada from the Cardiff region alone when she was only 14. She worked as a nanny. She was an orphan and a twin. Her name was May Jones and her twin sister was Mary Jones.
@@GenealCymru Technically they had different first names: my nan was May and her twin was Mary. With only one letter difference, there must've been some confusion in their time as well!
Oh, I totally read that wrong. But yeah if I can't keep May and Mary straight by reading them, I'm sure it must have been a bit confusing at home! hehe
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 :) )
I'm a Cajun named Jones who traces his surname back in time through the states of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland before the Revolution, across the Atlantic to northern Wales.
Williams is such a common last name in Wales and is still the third most common last name in the United States. Out of the top ten last names in the United States many have roots in Wales. 1. Smith 2. Johnson 3. Williams 4. Brown 5. Jones 6. Garcia 7. Miller 8. Davis 9. Rodriguez 10. Martinez
Many people who immigrated to Great Britain from Eastern Europe had thick accents and some only knew the Cyrillic alphabet. Those people on arrival were simplified and assigned names by officials. Miller and Harris were popular, so many people with Jewish ancestry in the US have those names but their ancestors in the home country still had the original names. For example husband’s grandfather parents came from Kiev, named Lifshutz, went to GB, were renamed Harris and then moved to the US. One of my ancestors came from Ireland in the early 1700’s whose name was Matthew Hennen, Nobody researched that line beyond him and I didn’t realize until my 50’s that the name was German. The relative did extensive research and created 2 thick books including as much information as possible from archives as well as interviewing those currently alive but the origination of the name was never mentioned and our family assumed we were Irish even before the book was published. It was true, but only to a certain point, so Miller and Harris might have a bigger backstory than Wales.
Evans! more about Evans! My Ancestry search goes back to Wolverhampton England in the first half of the 19th century. So no connection to anyone in Wales. The family did like to vacation in Llandudno.
Definitely Welsh. The surname is the first example of heritage. Proven atleast one origin. Unless someone was adopted ofcourse. Any English person with these names have Welsh ancestry, along with their English ancestry. Most are probably mixed.
As a modern day Welshman and historian, I can suggest to you that in the 19th Century the city area of Wolverhampton was expanding into a large urban sprawl manufacturing iron, demanding much labour. At the same time in predominantly agricultural North and Central Wales, due to the mechanization of agro-processes there was a great decline in the need for workers. So many ex-farmworkers moved to the growing industrial city areas of Manchester, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. In terms of distance, your ancestors could have even walked to Wolverhapton from mid or north Wales in as little as two days. This by the way is not conjecture. It is historical fact. Many were forced to moved just to find work. Dena ni! Croeso! To wherever you are in the world.
I remember from the movie Zulu that the Welsh soldiers at the post called each other by the regiment number, because they all had the surname Jones and also their givenname was the same. made me think that Jones was the most common surname, but that isn't.
Jones number 2 or Evans no 3 or Clark no 3, was common, but when i joined the Australian Army when there were too many with the same last name we used the first two initials instead so I became SR instead of Jones. That failed when we also had too many Clarks in the same unit and one was also called SR so he became POM and I became Chook Choker (strangler of chickens) Do not ask how - STRAYA.
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: ruclips.net/video/0a6eognNi-M/видео.html Explaining Welsh First Names: ruclips.net/video/SMPNF8V-140/видео.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
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.
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.
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 ?
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 😁.
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.
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.
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
It's the sound of sub-Alban Prydain, not the language of the Irish Isles.
I discovered some Welsh heritage. I'm Very proud of it.❤
I have Welsh on both sides of my family.
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.
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.
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 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..😁..
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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. ❤
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.
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.
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
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.
I found this topic clearly and interestingly presented. Well done.
Glad you enjoyed!
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
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 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.
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.
My 3x great-grandfather on my mother's side, Thomas Price, came to the U.S. from Margam in the 1840's.
Da iawn.
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 RUclips 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
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).
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! :)
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...
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.
Williams and Lewis. Early settlers in the Carolinas from Wales
Me too! From near Rocky Mount. Lewis first then Williams.
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!
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
Family names are rare in my country (Iceland). We all get a first name and and then are specified by the first name of our father! I am a son, my first name is Hálfdan, my father's first name is Ingólfur and I am officially Hálfdan Ingólfsson. My sister's name is María, and she is officially Maria Ingólfsdóttir. This is an old Norse tradition.One has to be thick not to realize that 'son' means son and 'dottir' means daughter. By the way, my sister María remains María Ingólfsdóttir even if she married a nice guy named Ásgeir Ásgeirsson decades ago.
There is a modern twist: Anna Sveinsdóttir (Anna, daughter of wife-and-child-beating Svein and his beleagured wife Þórdís) is bound to change her name to Anna Þórdísardóttir once she reaches her majority.
The point: We remain individuals and are linked to out kin by first name throughout our lives.
I worked on my friend's tree last year and her ancestors were from Þingeyjarsýsla. Once they came to Canada, the name Arason was the one that ended up sticking as their hereditary surname. Her 3x Grandfather was an Ari. The Icelandic online records were pretty cool to look through. Also thanks for sharing about Icelandic naming practices!
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.
I have an ancestor Simon Meredith from Wales. He helped Benjamin Franklin financially to start a printing press business.
Very cool!
What a great video. I learned so much. Very well done.
Thank you.
New sub 👍
❤🇨🇦🌈
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm a Lloyd - Jones and that's been like that a while wondering if I have a full name as my surname
The difficulty as you may have said with Welsh surnames is that technically people could have English origin surnames but have no actually English ancestry because Wales adopted their system. So an English first names often became a surname In Wales. This is why you have names like Johns aswell as Jones. So another words people shouldn't jump to conclusions if you have an English surname where Wales is concerned. You just may be Welsh, not English.
Good point. I am a Johns and my father was a Welshman. However, in trying to trace his fathers ancestry we found some interesting facts about the name which threw us in a loop. For instance, we thought the family was from North Wales where father was born. Turns out Johns is a Southern name, with links to Cornwall. It looks like there may be a connection to Pembrokeshire, but it’s hard to factually confirm.
This is directly taken from “Who do you think you are” quote The three most common Cornish surnames are Williams, Richards and Thomas.
This preponderance of Welsh sounding surnames has often led to the mistaken belief (at least outside Cornwall), that if you bear such a name then you must be of Welsh descent, when certainly in the mining areas of Northern England, your family are as likely to have originated in Cornwall.
Due to the vast numbers of Cornish migrants in the copper, lead and coal mines of Wales, there are no doubt many Welsh families unaware that the origin of their very Welsh surname may have been in Cornwall.
Helpfully they also provide the following list of Cornish names: Some of the most numerous Cornish surnames and their variants are:
Andrew, Bennett (Bennetts, Bennetto), Bray, Brewer, Davey, Dawe, Dunstan, Eddy, George, Gilbert (Gilbard, Jelbart), Hancock, Harris (Harry), Harvey, Hawken, Hicks, Hocking, Hodge, Hooper, Hoskin, James, Jeffrey, Johns , Jenkin, Lobb, Martin, Matthews, Mitchell, Moyle, Nicholas, Nicholls, Pascoe, Pearce, Phillips (Philp), Richards (Rickard), Roberts, Rogers, Rowe, Rundle, Saunders (Saundry, Sanders, Sandow), Stephens (Stevens), Symons (Simmons, Semmens), Thomas (Toms), Trebilcock, Treloar, Truscott, Williams (Wills).
@@kernowboy137 That’s very interesting. It opens up more potential “leads” when tracing the family tree.
@@kernowboy137 I have often wondered how much interaction there was between Cornwall and Wales in earlier times, seeing that their respective languages would have been mutually intelligible.
Yeah I have a few ancestors with a Welsh surname, lol. Back in the noughties I got interested in genealogy, so I spent a bit of time having my DNA tested, I didn't group with Irish people, literally found a most recent ancestor match with a Welsh person to about 20 generations.
I've got little to prove anything, but by family tradition my x3 grandfather came from Wales and the sir name is Maughan (pronounced Mon). We laugh and say, well it has more letters than needed to get the point across so it must be Welsh.
Its the Irish spelling of Morgan, a royal Welsh name that was anglicised from Morcant. Said to have been the name of King Arthwys Ap Muerig's son. The real King Arthur.
@@taffyducks544 I'd just like to say 'thank-you' for the contributions to comments etc. that you make. You are everywhere! I'm learning lots about my Welsh heritage. I've only been researching my FT for a few years and am enjoying learning about the history of Wales, too. I am a first generation (senior) Australian of Welsh parents. Sadly I wasn't told much and didn't ask about my heritage when younger and my parents are long gone. I do know that a taffy is a Welshman, though. My DNA says that I am 70% Welsh ancestry and I'm proud of that. I've visited Wales, in a rush, and before I started to research my FT, and will return again in the next couple of/ few years.
My grandmother was born Jessie John near Swansea and my grandfather was born Sidney Jenkins from Llynathlly now sure of the spelling.
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.
Thanks for an interesting video:)
Glad you enjoyed!
In 1536, Henry viii, despite being the son of a Welshman , passed two anti Welsh laws: He banned the use of ap/ab and banned the use of the Welsh language in the courts.
Yep, when he took the English throne, it was arguably the biggest disaster in Welsh history. His father was proud of his Welsh ancestry and wouldn't do anything to jeopardise Wales. His son however wasn't much like him.
and he absorbed Wales into England. As far as I know it is still technically part of England as I don't recall any law which revoked his Act.
@@celtspeaksgoth7251 We are still part of England, unfortunately, that’s why we have no representation on the Union Flag. We had been part of England, de facto, for nigh on 250 years, apart from a few uprisings.
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 RUclips especially beyond Medieval history. 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
I became aware of patronymics when I started researching my family tree around 1988. I was more than a bit confused at the time. Eventually I got back to Richard ap Gibbon of Trecastle. His first son was Evan ap Richard and his son was Richard ap Evan and this alternated for about 8 more times over 400 years or so until the family settled on Prichard (of Collena) as a permanent surname. That took some sorting out.
It is a very excellent video. I shall recommend it. Thanks.
Very interesting. I've got a line of Evan Davids and David Evans' that's kinda like that. It can be nice when they put their full names on the documents so you get like 4 or 5 generations in a single name. Sometimes it feels like everyone but my ancestors did that haha. Glad you enjoyed :)
We researched our surname (Williams) and were told it came from Germany to England as Wilheim originally as a Saxondale name.
Williamson was the English take on The Germanic/Norman Wilhelm, etc. Williams generally denotes a link to the tradition of the Welsh keeping the single S rather than the son.
Williams was a name in wales before the Anglo saxons arrived.
@@patryan1375n
My maiden surname is Jenkins, which I think is a Welsh name. At this point I have very little history. Only that my paternal Grandfather was Isaac Jenkins, born in Belfast Ireland. He immigrated to Canada in the early 1900’s.
Thoroughly enjoyed your video and have subscribed. Thank you.
Jenkins is often Welsh, whereas Jenkinson is English/Scottish.
Glad to know you enjoyed!
Joan Young. Many people moved to Scotland and Northern Ireland to work on the shipbuilding sites. Many coal miners moved to Wales from Durham and the Midlands to work in the coal mines of Wales so there are lots of names from all over the country in Wales.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkins_(name)
This was most enlightening. Always fun to learn about peoples names.
My mum's mother's maiden name was Williams. They were coal miners from Anglesey who moved to the South Lancashire (Ashton in Makerfield) coalfield when the north Wales pits were exhausted in the late 19thC.
Very cool. There's been some other people around the channel with mining ancestors from Anglesey too. I really don't get enough chances to research North Wales. It's very interesting.
@@GenealCymru my 99 year old mum is, thankfully, still with us. Her mother died when mum was six (and her brother, one) from a back street abortion - pretty common then. Her father was a drunk and so mum left home to live with an aunt in Bolton. Her brother, my uncle (also still with us) had to endure living with his father until he could escape into the army by lying about his age. My mum was allocated work building Lancaster bomber wings during WW2. They lived remarkable and difficult lives.
Yes us Joneses have minners in my Jones family forever. I can only trace till 1850-60s all same area KY & VA.
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 🙂
Hello!! Dalton here!! In following Dalton tree, found surprise. Dalton (people of the valley) being more English, yet my "way-back" grand-mother Mary( who by desire or circumstance, had several children) and despite being "street-oriented" was actually a daughter of an "arranged" marriage to English nobility, and also grand-daughter of Willam the Conquerer's illigitimate half-sister. Mary, being very opportunistic, married a Dalton stationed as military gov in Normandy(Northern France??) Had her last son( my 'xxxxx' grand-father) by him. When her husband fell deathly ill, she and 12 y.o. son, in several quick trips, packed up anything of immediate cash value, skipped back/ forth across English Channel. Dalton family "banished the little strumpet" on last trip(she left them only furniture and house) She/her son returned to her home village in England, where she died @78(very old for that time). She was a warrior. But, I was surprised to find that her mother was daughter of William's half-sister. I suppose that may be where her fighting spirit originated.
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.
I have 3 families from Tennessee before 1820 I was told were Welsh. The surnames were Smith, Jones, and Bandy. Plus a Baird family which was Scottish. These 4 families moved together to Illinois and apparently intermarriaged for several generations. My great grandmother was a Jones and married a Smith. It made it hard to find more of the line for years. It was because of finding her father-in-law who had married a Baird that I was able to make a break through on these ancestors.
That's awesome that you found them though. I was stuck on one of my 5x grandmas for ages until I found an unknown son's death announcement and then traced him to when he was living with her brother. Sometimes it just takes researching around the person we're stuck at.
So that's why when my grandma said that if I go to a pub in Wales and they kick everyone out not named Williams I won't feel so special when 3/4 of us are still there.
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.
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.
Surnames used in Wales would be a more appropriate Title since most names like Williams. Thomas, Jones, Roberts amongst many others are not Welsh names by heritage but Norman English
Many original Welsh names have been Anglicised/ Griffiths, Davies, Meredith Rees but are real Welsh names just differently, or should we say, incorrectly spelt.
Perhaps. However, this video is less about the names and more about the social practices that turned names into surnames, and those are uniquely Welsh social practices. It was Welsh people, Welsh culture, and Welsh history that turned David into Davies, William into Williams, John into Jones, etc. And I think that's important to recognize.
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.
I am from the Sons of AODH Clan. David Davies from Glamorgan Wales 1765, who most likely came from the Dal Cassians in Ireland. M222 Genetics --> R-FT132323, Uí Fiachrach, Cenél Feradaig Dathíi the last pagan King of Ireland. (there are only two of us on this branch --> my father Dan Hall Davis and I, Shane Patrick Davis)
Hi great vidfeo thanks posting it. I do think there are severalvery important historical events your missing. Your focus heavily on the gradual cultural shift due to the proximty of English culture. For instance surnames growing in use specifically because of property rights and making inheritane. Patryonimc naming system,s in wales are extremely important in Welsh medival inheritance law. going back to the early medeival period ie 600-800 C.E. Under welsh law the king's (under other land owners) lands (maertref) were required to be divided among all of his acknowledged sons by whatever mother on their death. Ending this system went along withe English conquest of by Edward 1st in the mid 13th century and the destruction of the remainaing welsh royal houses of Gweynedd and others.
Thanks for the additions. I'll keep them in mind if I end up doing a video more focussed on names in medieval times.
I read somewhere that in Wales people often added an "s" at the end of their father's name (Evan > Evans) to indicate this person was "the son of....(Evan)" This theory would seem to mesh well with the history you present in this video where you say that (starting in the 1600s) the Welsh were often pressured to shorten their long patronymic names to just ONE name; adding a possessive "s" would allow them to hang onto their tradition of honoring their father by condensing "ab Evan" into the single possessive word "Evans" (perhaps leaving off the word "son" to avoid sounding Danish/Nordic -- heaven forbid!)
Have you come across anything like this theory in your research? There DO seem to be a lot of Welsh surnames ending in what could be seen as a possessive "s"!
That is correct...this is why you have so many names that have the son on, and just the singular S. Son tends to show Nordic ancestry within the British Isles (tends to be more common in England and Scotland). Whereas the Singular S suggests a Brittonic (Welsh) connection.
Thank you so much for sharing that information! My maiden name is Evans and my ancestors on my dad’s side are from Wales!
I have ancestors from Scotland who are William (no “s” on the end of their surname). I find this all very interesting.
The ‘o’ on the end of my surname is Cornish for ‘son of’
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.
Interesting. My family has several Welsh names like Powell, Price, Williams, Robins, Thomas, Howell,Evans,as well as Scottish and English and German surnames and settled initially in the Carolinas, and Georgia. I believe they were dissenters and came for religious reasons.
Very cool. I've also got quite a few dissenters through my tree. I've actually just started working on a script about Religious nonconformity in Wales this morning so that will come out at some point in the new year.
After doing basic research on my surname I read that the e-r-y ending of my surname was a Welsh version of the more common r-e-y version of the name. I can't identify any branch of my family with any obvious connection to Wales so the "Welsh Twist" is a mystery to me. BTW I DO understand the ease at which names can be heard wrong and therefore transcribed incorrectly. Even close friends pluralize my last name to e-r-y-s. I put this down to the Mandela Effect!
Very interesting! I don't often think to focus on those details of spellings. Thanks!
@@GenealCymru "Ah but what's in a name"....well a lot as it turns out. You do good stuff GC.
I've never heard of Jeffery being of Welsh descent. Its not a common surname in Wales at all (I live here, in the videoclip, my house is on the hills just out of shot of the castle (Caerphilly castle)) and only ever known two, "Jeffreys"). . I wouldn't read too much into the spelling, up until about 150-100 years ago most people were illiterate, so wouldn't know how to spell their own surname, whoever wrote it down took their best guess at what they heard,.if you look at the UK census which started in the early 19th century, you'll often find the spelling change from one to another.
@@philldavies7940 Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I am in agreement with you that we were not great at spelling in the day and not much better at transcribing. Cheers.
My name is Davis ..I can trace my first ancestor who came to the shores of Ireland in the 12th century ...his name was David Davy ..my wife name is o Brien ..she has traced her ancestors back over 1800 years in Kerry......
My husband's family name is Griffith. There were told they took that named after the macgregors were outlawed.
My great grandmother was a Griffiths and I am a Lynn, I wonder if we are related?!
You said very little about the surname Evans. My sister's last name is Evans and they were of the opinion that they were Irish (their father had an Irish dad and black mother). I couldn't find any name originality regarding the name Evans until I saw it listed in your video. I wanted to know if it is indeed Irish or Welsh.
My mother was an Evans they moved from Pontypridd in south Wales where she was born to Cregrina where my great grandfather lived.
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.
My mother`s family are Kendricks/ Kenrick`s/ Kenwrick`s/ Cynric`s, from Cynric and Cerdic, which I have probably spelled wrong. Enjoyed your presentation. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed!
I know that preece comes from the name ap Rhys. Ap used to be used before your last name, which would be your fathers name.
Yes, really great example!
Hi, I’m an American who has found out my father’s father Robert Roberts was from Caernarvon, his father John Roberts & Mary Davies were from Y Gyffin, Conway District, Caernarvonshire. It looks like this side was only near the sea in Gwynedd.
Thank you
Very cool. Thanks for sharing! :)
Evans and Chilton. Although I strongly suspect the Chilton ancestors came from England at some point. No proof yet but seems likely.
I have David/Davis, Lewis, Griffith, Jones and Morris ancestors from Wales.
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.
I was married to a Thomas from Knutsford so this has been so invaluable. I've studied my Irish heritage to Connaught, Grange. Which is a place name in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
Cool. I find my ancestors every once in a while ended up in Australia and they sure did love to take their place names with them! I had one couple go there in the late 1800s, they named their Australian farm after their Welsh one. Then they returned to Wales 20 years later and moved into a new farm that they called Westralia after Western Australia I suppose!
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!
My mother's family has been in America since before the revolutionary war but they include Rice/Reece/Rhys and Bevins but I never knew where they came from originally. Looking forward to following them to Wales.
That's awesome. I hope you have a good time of crossing the ocean! The research can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, but keep at it and you'll figure it out!
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
My maiden name was Williams . There is also Cameron on my mother’s aside and her father was named Porter
know Porter from - Napeir city- new zealand.
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
So French/English colonisers and British tax are the reasons why hereditary surnames exist in Wales, Interesting and unsurprising smh.
My name is Williams, Ive always wondered why so many slaves were forced to have that name? My family is from Jamaica 🇯🇲 but I know that colonisers/slavemasters of welsh descent are the reason why my family are called Williams and trigger warning ⚠️ I’m probably part Welsh too due to rape during that time obviously)
Plus I also know that Jamaica existed as a colony before Britain as a concept did. Jamaica was an English colony from 1655 (when it was captured by the English from Spain), and a British Colony from 1707 until 1962, when it became independent. Wales 🏴 became a part of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
Yes, you are correct. Wales played a big role in British colonialism and slavery. The very landscape, from infrastructure to urbanization, etc., all throughout Britain is tied to enslavement. There's some videos on that upcoming. Also, if you're interested in researching your Jamaican ancestry, "Jamaican Genealogy Resources" on Facebook is probably the best group of any type on the site. They're incredibly welcoming and helpful and have tons of resources collected. Also, if you're ever looking for someone to do some genealogy work for you, I offer free work for black Jamaicans.
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.
My nan came to Canada from the Cardiff region alone when she was only 14. She worked as a nanny. She was an orphan and a twin. Her name was May Jones and her twin sister was Mary Jones.
Oh wow, I've never seen twins given the same name. I wonder what they called them in their everyday life to keep track of who was talking to who.
@@GenealCymru Technically they had different first names: my nan was May and her twin was Mary. With only one letter difference, there must've been some confusion in their time as well!
Oh, I totally read that wrong. But yeah if I can't keep May and Mary straight by reading them, I'm sure it must have been a bit confusing at home! hehe
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!
I'm a Cajun named Jones who traces his surname back in time through the states of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland before the Revolution, across the Atlantic to northern Wales.
Very cool! What a fascinating migration path to follow!
Williams is such a common last name in Wales and is still the third most common last name in the United States. Out of the top ten last names in the United States many have roots in Wales. 1. Smith
2. Johnson
3. Williams
4. Brown
5. Jones
6. Garcia
7. Miller
8. Davis
9. Rodriguez
10. Martinez
Many people who immigrated to Great Britain from Eastern Europe had thick accents and some only knew the Cyrillic alphabet. Those people on arrival were simplified and assigned names by officials. Miller and Harris were popular, so many people with Jewish ancestry in the US have those names but their ancestors in the home country still had the original names. For example husband’s grandfather parents came from Kiev, named Lifshutz, went to GB, were renamed Harris and then moved to the US. One of my ancestors came from Ireland in the early 1700’s whose name was Matthew Hennen, Nobody researched that line beyond him and I didn’t realize until my 50’s that the name was German. The relative did extensive research and created 2 thick books including as much information as possible from archives as well as interviewing those currently alive but the origination of the name was never mentioned and our family assumed we were Irish even before the book was published. It was true, but only to a certain point, so Miller and Harris might have a bigger backstory than Wales.
Every Welsh surname has been mistaken as a English surname from non British people around the world.
Evans! more about Evans! My Ancestry search goes back to Wolverhampton England in the first half of the 19th century. So no connection to anyone in Wales. The family did like to vacation in Llandudno.
Definitely Welsh. The surname is the first example of heritage. Proven atleast one origin. Unless someone was adopted ofcourse. Any English person with these names have Welsh ancestry, along with their English ancestry. Most are probably mixed.
As a modern day Welshman and historian, I can suggest to you that in the 19th Century the city area of Wolverhampton was expanding into a large urban sprawl manufacturing iron, demanding much labour. At the same time in predominantly agricultural North and Central Wales, due to the mechanization of agro-processes there was a great decline in the need for workers. So many ex-farmworkers moved to the growing industrial city areas of Manchester, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. In terms of distance, your ancestors could have even walked to Wolverhapton from mid or north Wales in as little as two days. This by the way is not conjecture. It is historical fact. Many were forced to moved just to find work. Dena ni! Croeso! To wherever you are in the world.
I remember from the movie Zulu that the Welsh soldiers at the post called each other by the regiment number, because they all had the surname Jones and also their givenname was the same.
made me think that Jones was the most common surname, but that isn't.
Jones number 2 or Evans no 3 or Clark no 3, was common, but when i joined the Australian Army when there were too many with the same last name we used the first two initials instead so I became SR instead of Jones. That failed when we also had too many Clarks in the same unit and one was also called SR so he became POM and I became Chook Choker (strangler of chickens) Do not ask how - STRAYA.