Bruce Durie - Welsh Genealogy

History is the dumping-ground of biology.

And genealogy is one way of keeping the score.

Bruce Durie, with thanks to Carlos Ruiz Zafn

The man who has only the excellence of his ancestry to boast of, resembles that edible root, the potato, the best part being under ground.

Sir Thomas Overbury

A genealogist is someone who regards a step backwards as progress.

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This book emerged from courses in genealogy, family history, heraldry, palaeography and related subjects at the universities of Strathclyde and Edinburgh, and from talks and lectures given elsewhere. It is not a list of sources, although a great many sources are mentioned. There are other places to get lists of books, archive holdings and websites. It is, rather, intended as a working manual for genealogists with an interest in Welsh records and family history, firmly based in the praxis of a genealogical researcher and educator, with worked examples, templates and methodologies. It is aimed at all those interested in pursuing proper research into Welsh records and archives for genealogical purposes. This includes:

Anyone wishing to trace ancestors of a particular person of Welsh descent, including those in countries that accepted the Welsh diaspora principally the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and India;

Archivists, librarians, registers and those who guide others in the use of records and archives;

Those with a professional interest in Welsh genealogy lawyers, records agents, researchers in archives and, of course, genealogists;

Anyone needing a suitable textbook for a preparatory course on Welsh genealogy.

There are subjects here not routinely covered in most introductory genealogy books for instance, the interpretation of mediaeval documents, Latin inscriptions and palaeography. Where possible and relevant, parallels and differences have been drawn between Welsh genealogy and that of Scotland, England, Ireland and other countries. As the basic family history sources censuses, vital records and the various registers of property, electors and membership become more readily available, genealogists will seek to push their research further back in time to the 1500s and earlier. There is much in this book that, with luck, will be of wider interest than the records of Wales, but as these are so rich and go back so far, there is a great deal every genealogist can learn from their study and careful application.

Finally, thanks are due to staff at The National Archives, Kew (TNA), the National Library of Wales, many local libraries, archives and societies, and to the numerous long-suffering university colleagues and family members who put up with the process of authorship.

To quote an old Welsh saying, particularly appropriate to the study of those long gone: Yn araf deg mae dal ir (The way to catch a hen is slowly).

If you are new to family history, please read this chapter. If you are an experienced family history researcher, please read this chapter. Whether you agree or disagree with the techniques and tips in here, it may make you think about your existing practices. This is not a how to do it menu so much as recipes born of years of experience in researching, teaching and writing about genealogy and local history. Nor is it the only way to approach research, but it is intended to help readers avoid some of the common pitfalls, and get the best out of their time and energies. Individual chapters may suggest a research strategy or source not previously considered, or a new approach to a long-standing problem.

History is the great destroyer it destroys reputations, illusions, myths and vanities; it reminds us that we are all mortal and passing; it teaches us that we have little control over our actions and their consequences, our destinies and even our motives. We have no hand in choosing our ancestors, and little over our descendants choice of friends and spouses. Each of us is the product of our genes, our immediate family environment, our society and the influence of the wider world. Even our deepest-held beliefs, prejudices and bigotries dissolve when put under the microscope of history, and our seemingly complex human world is much like an ant colony when viewed from a sufficient distance. But where genealogy differs from history per se is that it moves the focus away from the grand sweep of civilisations and larger social groups to the lives and actions of individuals and immediate families. It is often as far from the Great Man view of history the way it used to be taught (lists of kings and battles) as a cat is from a queen. Those interested in history itself often find it is best illuminated when seen through the life of one person, an ancestor with whom we have some commonality of feeling by virtue of no more than a shared surname or location, or a half-remembered family story.

However, the majority of such people led quiet, blameless lives and left very few traces, and almost all sources of biography come from collision with the authorities. This tends to be for purposes of registration (birth, marriage, death, census, taxes, poor relief etc.) or for legal reasons, whether criminal (arrests, trials, executions, witness statements) or civil (law suits, divorce, wills, property transfers). All of these generated records, which may still exist in some form, or at least as indexes or abstracts.

Being a small country, the set of records available in Wales is approximately one-twentieth of that of England, and is therefore of manageable proportions. Welsh genealogy is, to that extent, easier. However, there is far more to Welsh genealogy than merely searching for vital data in the old parish registers (OPRs baptism, marriage and burial records from the 1500s to 1836), statutory records (births, marriages and deaths from 1837) and the decennial censuses from 1841).

The parish registers, by definition, only start with the birth of the Reformation in the 1500s, and only deal with the Established Church. Catholics, Episcopalians, the many Nonconformists in Wales and those who simply chose not to take part in parish registration (the nobility, often) are completely ignored until much later. Those registers that exist may not be easy to access. Equally, records of burials were not considered important until well after the Reformation, since it was only after that time that bodily resurrection at the last trump became an issue before this, the location of physical remains hardly mattered except for royalty or anyone likely to achieve sainthood (and therefore be a source of relics and an object of veneration). Even then, the parish registers are incomplete.

So, before the 1500s, family history can become murky. However, names were often recorded in charters, especially when feudally held lands were passed on, or where grants of land, titles or other inheritances held of the sovereign had to be recorded. There were also records of pedigree and coats of arms in heraldic records, which are a rich source of name and place information.

Most genealogical research stalls somewhere in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Between the 1500s and the 1830s to 1840s (the beginning of statutory registration, the censuses and much else, as the Victorians set about organising a secular society) not everyone will be recorded, especially Nonconformists and the poor, particularly in both the sparsely populated areas and the densely packed centres of very large towns and cities. Remember that it was mainly baptisms (not births) which were noted in the parish registers, and the same goes for the other sacraments proclamation of marriage (banns) rather than the marriage itself, and burial or mort-cloth (shroud) rental rather than death.