RootsChat.Com
Wales (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wales => Glamorganshire => Topic started by: halfasheep on Friday 09 January 09 09:17 GMT (UK)
-
basically, of all the lines I've been tracing back, I've hit 1900 before I go to Italy (peasants and farmers), 1851 before I go back to Ireland (1861 on another line), but one line appears to be Welsh and I think I have them back as far as 1791 in the Neath area.
There doesn't appear to be anyone of great mention in my family - not that they are not all important to me - but seem to be miners, or occupations to that effect.
I've not gone down parish records/LDS route before, and I'm trying to thicken out what I can find from BMD and censuses, possibly getting up to any living relatives before I go back any further (in the vague hope someone will have done everything for me already ;)).
So the basic question is, how far back can I realistically look to go records-wise before my guys drop off the face of the planet? I'm not expecting to go back to the Norman conquest, but is there a possibility of getting back past 1750 at the very least in South Wales?
Any replies will be gratefully (and possibly frustratingly) acknowledged ;D
-
Parish Registers will take you back to 1538 if you are lucky. The problem is that the further you go back the fewer of them survive. Apart from that it very much depends on whether your family was rich, poor or neither.
If they were a family entitled to a coat of arms then that leads to other sources. Similarly if they owned or leased property then that gives further leads. I have one branch back to 1450, admittedly with a few fairly weak links, based on the fact that they had property in the same area and it could be traced being passed from father to son etc..
David
-
Would be nice to back that far, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen - coat of arms - you're hoping!
Thanks for the info though - like I say, will concentrate more at this time on the readily (ie easy) resources that are about to beef everything up - should help me in the long run as I should be able to clarify info a little easier
-
Would be nice to back that far, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen - coat of arms - you're hoping!
It is not as unlikely as you think. I have two lines where this has happened, one certain and one highly likely. The certain one had three generations of ag labs before they started to descend from farming familes and eventually back in 1645 from a family who had a coat of arms which from the published herald's visitation took me back to 1582. What you have to remember is that by the time you are in the 1600s you will have thousands of ancestral lines and so it just a matter of finding the interesting ones.
David
-
I suppose so - I'm just so used to finding more and more coal miners, I just don't think I'm going to find anyone with a higher status, but as you say, I may stumble across someone.
Saying that, I have seen stories of well to do families ending up as agricultural labourers as the intheritance ends up getting spread so thin, and the people who inherit the property/money just squander it.
-
How do you find out if someone in the family has a coat of arms? because on one line I have family members who were Ag Labs but they're parents and grandparents were farmers but Im finding it really hard to get futher back at moment, I know just because they were farmer doesnt mean that they might have come from money but like David said you never know :)
Duke
-
You could try Debrett's (google books) for information about members of the aristocracy, but beware of making assumptions just because a name fits.
As for farmers, a high proportion of them would be called smallholders these days as they may have farmed very few acres, and most only rented their farm.
Mike.
-
Well I know that that farm they were on was 63 acers, would this be considerd as "smallholders" and I have another family line that had a 99 acer farm. How many acers would you consider to be "smallholders"?
-
How do you find out if someone in the family has a coat of arms?
Duke
There are various books which you will find in any major reference library which list coats of arms and the family which was entitled to them.
For example Fairbairn's Crests which details the crests which are found on the helmets in the coats of arms of British families. Once the family and the county where they lived in the 1600s has been identified then you can find the Herald's Visitation to the county as published by the Harleian Society which will contain a pedigree for the family. Alternatively you can just search these for your family name.
You then match the pedigree to the information you have about the family from other sources.
Alternatively if you find papers from the family in various archives the seal will often bear the coat of arms.
There is of course the very expensive way which is to ask the College of Arms but that costs hundreds of pounds to find the details even if you give them the basic facts. I was quoted £125 some years ago when I asked for the Blazon (written description) of the arms and pedigree of someone for whom I knew the exact date when they were knighted. I knew that the arms were derived from those of the family some 200 years earlier and this information should have shown me how he was linked.
You will find Debrett's in your reference library as well. se
David
-
I know mine were living in one of the cottages at Bryncoch Farm, but all seemed to be in the mining industry in some capacity of the other.
Say I find in the mists of time that they did work on farms, how would I go about finding the acreage they worked anyway?
-
Well I know that that farm they were on was 63 acers, would this be considerd as "smallholders" and I have another family line that had a 99 acer farm. How many acers would you consider to be "smallholders"?
66 or 99 acres would be a reasonable size farms in the fertile parts of the country but in other areas only just sufficient to support a family. For example around London in areas which are now part of the suburbs a reasonable sized farm would be at least 250 acres.
David
-
I hope I didn't give the impression I was belittling small farmers (being one myself) 8)
What I meant to say was that many described as farmers in the census were really subsistence farmers on rented land struggling to keep body and soul together just as most Ag Labs would have been. Having experienced first hand just a little of what they had to contend with, I have an enduring respect for all of them.
The dictionary helpfully describes a smallholding as "smaller than a farm" :-\ . . . but I would agree with David's definitions.
Mike.
-
The other vital resource which I had forgotten is of course wills. The most surprising people made wills even back in the 1700s. I have found wills of people who I thought were just Ag Labs who in fact owned about ten acres of land and the cottage in which they lived who left a will.
David
-
Wills is another area I am yet to delve into (mainly due to a complete lack of time to search the indexes). I have one will, but only because someone had found the index and posted it on their website dedicated to one of the surnames I was researching.
So many resources, so little time. I suppose it comes down to where you're going with your tree. I'm trying to be as comprehensive as possible, whilst only including blood relations, so whilst I'm growing outwards in numbers, I'm not actually going that far back at the moment, but would really like to - one of my resolutions this year (although the ongoing house renovation and impending wedding will no doubt but a damper on things)
-
Where do you find out about wills? Are there sites and stuff you can go on?
-
Think you have to go to Cardiff records office to search - don;t think you can search for wills on-line (correct me if I'm wrong - it would help me no end!)
-
This might help with wills.
http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=487
You get directed to the online wills pages,
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/default.asp?j=1
Use this one to search for other wills.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/wills/?homepage=quicklink
Try this one as well.
*****************************************
This might also be of help if you have problem working around the sites.
I had trouble `susssing`this out and was given this tip , it is quite simple and comes up with more detail, ie name, place and occupation than A2A does,
Although the NLW site looks impressive it is not easy to navigate!
If you are looking for wills, go to:
http://cat.llgc.org.uk/cgi-bin/gw/chameleon
Select 'English' (if required) at the top-right
Select 'Family History' in the left column menu
Select 'Wills' in the 'Search for ...' box in the left column and click
on the 'Save' button
Select 'Keyword' in the central column
Type in the name of the person in the first 'Search for' box in the
central column
Type in a place (e.g. village, town or county) in the econd 'Search
for' box in the central column and click on the 'Search' button
A list of possibilities should appear.
To find further details, click on the record number.
The important details are the 'Title', 'In' and 'Shelfmark' e.g. SA1717-22
You can then contact the Library in order to get a quote for the
photocopying at:
http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=nlwenquiries and filling in an 'enquiry form'.
-
You can find a number of threads discussing Wills and the other subjects by going to the Rootschat lexicon:
http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/index.php
David
-
For Wales, the National Library at Aberystwyth is a good source also Glamorgan Records Office in Caridff
-
My father's line, which admittedly has one weak link in the chain, (illegitimacy in 1776) has been traced back by another researcher to c1300. The family was not grand, just tenant farmers who rented their land from the same family for over 400 years! The manorial records just happen to have survived. On his maternal side, I have two lines which go back confirmed to 1540 approx, no known weak links. On my mother's side one line goes back into the early 16th century. A researcher, now sadly deceased at Doncaster traced his tree back to a Saxon nobleman known as Thorkell.
Much depends on the survival of records, of course if you find aristocracy in any of your lines then the work may have already been done, but beware, there are many fake trees around from the 19th century!