RootsChat.Com
Wales (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wales => Caernarvonshire => Topic started by: Hollister on Wednesday 24 September 08 20:06 BST (UK)
-
Hello. I have been researching the family of Evan Griffith of Capel Curig. I have looked at the death record of his wife, Margaret Griffith and when she died it states she resided in Pen y gwaith. I'm confused. I've looked on the map and I can't tell if this is a house or an area or town...any help would be appreciated. Also, I have information that when Evan Griffith died he resided at Cwm Uchaf near Capel Curig.
Thanks
-
Hi Hollister and a Warm Welcome to Rootschat ;D
Took me an age to find this, but I would suggest that you make enquiries with the local records office, who I understand are here http://www.gwynedd.gov.uk/gwy_doc.asp?cat=3693&doc=12971 in my experience records offices often have old maps of areas and can identify locations lost today (like Caernarvonshire ::) ) and isolate place names for you, if they have someone able to do for you.
Hope this helps !
Wendi :)
-
Thank you Wendi. Will do. ;D
-
Oh do let us know !!! Fingers crossed !
Wendi :)
-
Hi Hollister,
Found an obscure travel website - by typing in pen-y-gwydd - and there is mention (to an american thinking of visiting England) which do say "why not stay at pen-y-gwydd (th is dd in Welsh) snowdonia. There is also mention of the same place "half way up snowdon"
Digging a little deeper locally may come up with answer.
Hope this helps.
Regards
Quarryman
-
http://www.rootschat.com/links/04fm/
Zooming in on the above, it appears to be a house name.
Using 'Google Maps' to plot a route between Pen y Gwaith, Cwm Uchaf & Capel Curig gives the distance between the three places of 16 miles:
(This may not be the correct Cwm Uchaf)
http://www.rootschat.com/links/04fl/
-
Quarryman and SS - you have given me lots to think about. Thanks for the great ideas of different spellings. Here are my thoughts - it is possible that Margaret Evans died at Pen y Gwaith - it is close by to where her daughter was living at that time. And, it is also possible that the place could have been Pen y Gwryd, which I found trying to find Pen y gwaith as Quarryman suggested. It is at the junction of the A4086 and A498. This place is just down the road from the family home of Cwm Uchaf.
Isn't genealogy fun?
Thanks again.
Holly
-
Hello Hollister,
Before you get even more confused here are a few tips about the Welsh language.Th and Dd are 2 letters in the Welsh alphabet {the Welsh alphabet and the English one are entirely different}and are not inter-changable.Further confusion often arose through the employment in the 1800's of English Census enumerators who could not speak or write Welsh.This means that from 1841 to 1901 a place could be wrongly spelled in 7 different ways,none of which were correct!!This was before you even touched on the Parish names!
'Pen y' before another word means Head of or Top of,so 'Pen y Gwaith' would become Top of the Works{as in quarry workings,etc.}.'Pen y Gwryd' and 'Pen y Gwydd' then are entirely different places,even allowing for English enumerators!If you wish to know whether somewhere is spelled correctly there are several online Welsh dictionaries and this should be your first port of call to establish the correct spelling of the place and to avoid confusion.Also as others have mentioned the local Records Office are very good when it comes to places in their locality and most if not all the staff in the Gwynedd one will speak Welsh and English fluently so should be able to direct you to the right place.
Hope this helps,brawd houdini
-
brawd houdini - thank you and yes, this helps me greatly. I have a question for you - on Margaret's death record in 1833 it states she was from Pen y gwaith. I was assuming that it meant that was the last place she lived. Could it mean that it was where she was born?
I thank you again and everyone else for the help!!
-
Hello holister,
Glad to be of help.As to your question I presume your Death Record is a Parish Record which would be an unlikely source for information regarding her birth.
However I would once again direct you to the Gwynedd county Record office in Caernarfon which might have a record of her birth.I think that you should establish what Parish she might have been born in.A good place to start might be the Parish she died in,and the surrounding Parishes.Also finding her Marriage Record could be a big help in establishing where she originated from.
I don't know if you are familiar with the area but something that might interest you is that Pen y Gwryd is a small hotel that was used by Edmund Hillary as the base for the Everest conquering team.They held their trial climbs as a team in Snowdonia.
Good luck,brawd houdini
-
Hi, I believe Pen y Gwaith is on a hill a few miles north of Betws y Coed. This was used until the late 1990's by the Metropolitan Police Cadets as a base for their outward bound trips. I do have it on a OS map of Snowdon sheet 115 ref 78/60. This may not be the one you are looking for but it isn't far from Capel Curig. I can tell you that in this case the name refers to a house and not an area. Hope this helps.
Merlinsfield
-
Thank you to all of you for your amazing help. I have found both houses and have also found a great map website called multimap.com which shows the area in pretty good detail.
Again, you are all wonderful and if you ever need anything looked-up in California (ha) don't hesitate to ask!
Holly ;D
-
Another site you may well wish to visit for the area is http://www.geograph.org.uk which is a site of submitted photgraphs of the UK.
You just put in a search criteria - say Capel Curig to get going and have a look around. Great if you cant visit but want to have a look-see.........and yes where you are looking for I think is on there........at least you get a feel for the area.
Good hunting.
Mair
-
Hi, I was looking up Pen y Gwaith and came accross your post. If it helps I was a met police cadet in 1990, as mentioned in the above post it was used by us. It is a small remote cottage in the middle of nowhere, we used to have to hike up there from Betws y coed and camp in the garden area although there was a bunk house in the cottage. I believe the Met sold it in 1994 ish as the full time met cadets were closed down in 1992/93. As mentioned it is remote in woodland about 2 miles north of Betws y coed.