Welsh translation/location please

[nudge67]

Hi i'm wondering if someone could help me decipher three words that I found in parish registers relating to Llanvorda on the Welsh border near Oswestry. I've kept them in their entry for context, and bolded the word that I am chasing.

Googling them reveals nothing. I suspect the last two may be alternate spellings of a location.


30 Dec 1747  John Edwards, smith, alias goemawr, of Llanvorda, was buried at Ruabon.

23 Jun 1751  Alice the wife of Thomas Edwards, Svchgwin, in the township of Llanvorda was buried.

10 Jul 1762  Thomas Edwards, late Sychewin, in the township of Llanvorda was buried.


Any assistance greatly appreciated

Cheers
Nudge

[armek1]

Hi nudge,

Could these be Bardic or "literary" names?

"Goemawr" could be a mutated Coed Mawr meaning Large Wood.

The others I'm not sure about - my schoolboy Welsh is rather rusty to say the least, pretty much like the rest of me! "Sychewin" is a combination of two words - sych (dry) and ewin (claw or talon).

If I remember right, "alias" was quite often used to denote a Bardic name.

Regards,
Lee.

[wrjones]

You will find reference to Llanforda in the Oswestry Genuki Gazetter page,and you may also have spoken in your quotation of Sychtyn another Township near Oswestry.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SAL/Oswestry/Gaz1868.html

Regards
William Russell Jones
Cefn Mawr
Wrexham.

[nudge67]

Thank you both for your assistance.

Cheers
Nudge

[WelshGen]

Sychewin if you split it into two words becomes "Sych" which is "Dry" and"ewin" which is "claw"
You are also relying on the person that wrote those words and wether they were literate enough to spell correctly.

[catringoch]

Just a thought - the Welsh for smith is Gof, (quite often verbally called go') so the goemawr, could well be a nickname / bardic name that refers to him as the "Big Smith" or Tall Smith.

[Rachel Bowen]

If you could put a scan of the words/placenames you are looking for, it would help.
I originate from Ruabon and maybe I could recognose them from the handwriting. There were many variations used, For Example, Ruabon is used today You can find Rhiwabon, Rhuabon, Rhiwfabon - and of course the handwriting may be poor, or as someone else said, the person who was doing the recording was possibly not completely literate, and of course, many census enumerators had no knowledge of Welsh, or how to write it and would often just write down what to them was a phonetic spelling of a placename, or even person's name.

Rachel Bowen, France

[pinot]

Hello Nudge,
         re John Edwards, smith; smith in Welsh is gof (abbreviated in everyday speech to go' (pronounced roughly as English gore); Goemawr, the alias, could be Go' Mawr - the big smith.
                      Regards,
                              Pinot

Sorry - this adds nothing to Catringoch's earlier answer, which I'd forgotten.

[Gadget]

I know the place name Sychwin from somewhere but I've poured over maps of the Llanforda area and can't find it. It's not Sychtyn - which was part of Llansilin parish although in Shropshire.

Early on in my own Family History research, i did look at the records and maps for that area in great detail because i thought some of my ancestors came from there. They didn't so I didn't keep all the records 

I'll scout around some more


Gadget