Gill Thomas
Gill Thomas reveals everything you need to know about finding your kin in Welsh records, including how to overcome common problems
Gill is a member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives specialising in Welsh research.
‘Survival rates of parish registers are poor in comparison with England’
When giving talks or helping visitors at shows, I frequently encounter family historians who are much less confident about undertaking
Welsh research than they are investigating their roots in England. Since 1536 under the Act of Union, England and Wales have shared both common law and the system of administration by county or shires, and parish registers in Wales were to be kept by law from 1538, as in England. In theory this commonality of systems should make researching your Welsh ancestors plain sailing. However, there are a number of crucial differences.
The first hurdle that all researchers encounter is simply that too many people share the same surnames, the top three being Jones,
Williams and Davies. Most are the anglicisation of the Welsh patronymic system of naming, for example ‘Dafydd ap John’. Multiply this by the different variations of the same surname, for example Jones, Johnes and John, and the issue can seem daunting. Never assume that the Mary Jones you have found is the right one. Instead try to triple-check that the records match, such as the names of the person’s parents, addresses, memorial inscriptions and birthdates.
The second challenge is found in searching parish registers. Unfortunately the reality is that survival rates of these are poor in comparison with England – the only registers that survive from 1538 are for Gwaenysgor in Flintshire. Normally in the absence of parish records one might turn to Bishops’ Transcripts for backup,
but alas priests in far-flung parishes would often make excuses for failures to supply records reminiscent of “the dog ate my homework” along the lines of “a cow ate the register”.
Nonconformist Records
The Anglican church in Wales was organised as in England, but a much higher proportion of parishioners were nonconformists. The 1851 census of religious worship indicates that some 80 per cent of worshippers attended chapel, not church. The vicar of Llangoedmore in southern Cardiganshire estimated that for every five baptisms at his church at least another one would be held in chapel, and therefore not in the parish register; the English equivalent might be one for every 26 baptisms. The National Library of Wales holds many chapel records and visitors can access the CAPELI database; search nonconformist records at ancestry.co.uk, findmypast. co.uk or bmdregisters. co.uk. If a chapel record has survived, it may well contain more detail than one would expect to find in a parish register, including the mother’s maiden name.
Also, your relation may not be buried at their place of worship but the nearest graveyard to home, so do a search by location not only by denomination. The majority of local family history societies have done sterling work in transcribing chapel memorial inscriptions, in addition to compiling indexes of nonconformist births and baptisms.
It’s All Welsh To Me
The third point of difference, and to those who can’t speak Welsh the most intimidating, is the Welsh language itself. If you do not identify