Wales

Not sure how I can make this entry without doing justice to 25+ years of work by a distant cousin while not boring friends to death, so if you're not into the genealogy thing, you might wanna skip these posts. If you've ever done a little research on your own or ever wonder who your great grandfather was – keep reading.

I've had a couple of posts on my genealogy research – to recap . . . we learned that Patrick's 6th great grandfather probably knew my 7th great grandfather, since they lived in the same small Massachusetts town of 100 people 300 years ago. And the family story that my great grandfather was actually an orphan was proven false, but this genealogy on my mother's side has to take the cake.

Here's the cliff notes version up until this point . . . after a bit of research (OK, a lot of research), I found one of my cousins, who also had the genealogy bug. He is technically my 4th cousin twice removed, which means that my 5th great grandmother, Jane Watkins, was his 3rd great grandmother. I'll spare the details on how we found each other, but the short answer is: The Internet - thanks Al Gore.

This breakthrough is kind of important, because up until this point the only thing I knew about my Mom's Welsh ancestors was that they were sheep farmers (not a rare occurrence in northern Wales), they left from Cardiganshire (not true), and they liked to read a lot (again, helpful if you're a librarian, not if you're actually trying to locate one person in a country of 5 million).

So after a couple of emails, I got in touch with Roy Watkins, who is basically every family's dream if you're trying to find out something about your distant ancestors. And it wasn't too much later that I invited myself over to Wales to see all that can be seen (I had to get back to Ireland somehow). Roy has spent the last 25 years researching the Watkins family line, and it really hasn't been easy at all.

Fortunately, it seems that for every stroke of bad luck (baptismal records for key family members no longer exist), fortune smiled on him with a little good luck (original marriage and legal documents from 300 years ago crossed his path all because he left his coat at an Archive and had to go back for it – more about those later).

So we pick up the story where my 3rd great grandfather left Wales for the New World around 1840's . . .

Wales: Pantgwyn

So this is basically Ground Zero as far as the Watkins family is concerned.

The homestead is called Pantgwyn, and this is where Gaynor Watkin married her husband Ellis ap Rhys on June 10, 1613. How do we know that? It's all in the original marriage contract that Roy has. Since the naming traditions in Wales are different than England, the family name would have switched to Gaynor's last name because she brought the land to the family. Ha, the feminists in the family are going to love that one.

Although the video doesn't do justice to the area, it's a pretty cool site. It basically sits nestled in a slight depression on top of large hill. At the time, all that could be seen in the valley belonged to the Watkins. The really cool bit was that if you weren't looking for the house - you'd never find it - since it is completely hidden from view unless you're 100 feet away from it. Kind of handy when you consider at the time, Wales was not the most stable area at the time (see 'Cromwell').

The house is in ruins, but you can see where the family would have hung out - remember, no TV or Internet to keep you entertained. And yes, the place is still surrounded by sheep . . . and cows . . . which we successfully avoided, and we were not required to make an emergency hop over a barbed wire fence.

Of all the places we visited (and there were a lot), this was my most memorable.

Wales: Nanthir

This is the birthplace of Anne Morris Watkins (1787-1866), who was my fourth great grandmother. She eventually moved to Newark, Ohio to be with her three sons that were the first to move to the US; and she is buried in Newark.

As you can see this house is still being lived in today, but not by any relatives of the Morris family. The woman who was living there was extremely nice and kind of excited that I had come from the States to see where my relatives had come from. That is really a common theme in Wales, they are fascinated by the family connections.

This would have been the same architectural style as Llwynon, so you can see that many of these houses have definitely stood the test of time.

Wales: Llwynon

So I must admit my head was spinning a bit from all the houses and farms that we ran around to over two days, but a couple definitely stood out. All of these places were marked on my GPS, and they're on my new Watkins Google Map – but here are some of the highlights.

Llwynon, which (I think) means "Ash Grove", was the last homestead of my 3rd great grandfather, before he left for the New World. And it had been in the family since 1697 until recently - I saw the original vellum Deed that proves it.

Unfortunately, the current owners have left the house deteriorate even though it is on the National Register; but there's no telling what will end up with the house – it's hung around this long, and many of the houses in the area of the same age have been restored and are amazing buildings. The deterioration is also quite recent, in the last generationl since Roy remembers the house being in much better condition not too long ago.

Fortunately the partridge hunters in the immediate vicinity didn't shoot us either.

Wales: Hendre bach

Hendre bach was essentially the Watkins homestead for the early part of the 1800's. They started to refurbish Ty'n dool in the 1860's so Roy's Great Grandfather Griffith could be moved away from the dampness at Hendre bach. He would die at Ty'n ddol in 1871. Both Hendre bach and Ty'n ddol stayed in the family until 1937.

Wales: Plasau

This was interesting.

It's actually Plasau, which would have been the last place that Anne Morris Watkins would have lived in Wales before moving to Newark, Ohio - where she eventually died. It's definitely a newer house - in fact, it would have almost been new when she lived there.

Roy had actually never been there before, so it was new to him as well. When asking for directions, people were a little bit more suspicious - but once they figured out we were pretty harmless, it was fine.

Wales: Meurig ap Ynyr fychan

Sorry about the picture quality, but this is Meurig ap Ynyr fychan which is in a local Church, Saint Mary's of Dolgellau. You know you're lucky in genealogy when you can go back to someone relatively famous. Once you get back far enough and hit the right people, you benefit from some well-accepted pedigrees by some pretty famous genealogists long passed. And time check here - it looks like we're talking 14th century.

It's not like filling in the empty dates of ancestors is the end all be all of genealogy, Roy and I both agree that it's the mundane stories of how people lived that are sometimes the most fascinating, but getting back to the 14th century is pretty cool.

In this case, the Watkins are related to this guy by Catherine Anwyl, wife of Watkin Roberts. (His complete pedigree is in Griffiths' Peds of Anglesey & Carnarvonshire Families.) The other interesting thing (and you can't make it out in this picture) is that his shield is the same family crest/heraldry that was on Robert Watkins' legal documents.

Wales: The White Lion

This was probably the second coolest place that I went to, once I realized it's significance.

This is actually a Pub in Bala called the White Lion. Although relatively new as a hotel (1700's), it has been a pub FOREVER - and certainly as long as the Watkins were living in the area. Although towns apparently were not a big thing in Wales (they were more an English invention), they did have the central pub - and this was it.

Kind of interesting to realize after all the Pubs I've been in while living in Ireland, that this one was the place where my ancestors actually would have hung out and known.

Wales: Landor Chapel

Although the original Church that the family would have gone to was replaced by this one, here is basically Sunday Central for the Watkins for the better part of two centuries. In case you're wondering, it's in Llandor.

We know that our ancestor John Watkins was not baptized in this Church (more on that later), but it is where everyone would have gone.

Wales: Build a bridge, get to Heaven

This is the bridge that Robert Watkins (1734-1811) built. I know it doesn't look like much, but it can't be too bad if it's still around and they built it before diesel engines.

Apparently, multi-billion dollar road building projects were not commonplace in Wales around the 17th century - so people had to pole vault over rivers and streams in order to get somewhere - most notably Church. I think this would be fun for a 10 year old, but a 70 year old grandmother would be a bit challenged.

Therefore one of the guaranteed ways to get to heaven was to actually build a bridge.

Wales: Heraldry

You know, I've always wanted one of these – a heraldic symbol to call your own. Well, it's not all ours, it's been around for awhile – but it's still cool that the family has one. I'll spare you the genealogy research – it's all on geni.com – the cool thing is that my 5th great grandfather, Robert Watkins (1734-1811) left some legal documents around that are fascinating in their own right. It also turns out that there is an intact seal with the heraldry symbol.

I think it's also kind of cool that the symbol is so close to a stuffed animal that I had as a child (giving a shout out to Rocky).

Wales: The Documents

Not sure if this came through in all the posts, but I have to do a quick entry on the Watkins' documents. Not only did they prove to be almost the Rosetta Stone of figuring out so much about the family history, but they're just plain cool.

Something about seeing the marriage agreement between your ancestors from 400 years ago. And the idea that your ancestors signed those documents. I've put a lot of the documents out on Picasa, but I'll add more as they come up.

Wales: Roy and Eve

Also another quick note to say thank you to Roy, and his wife, Eve. Again, an amazing trip and opportunity to see all these sites, documents, and learn so much - and completely 110% not possible without the long and hard work that Roy has done over the years. I think the family can look back decades from now and know what really happened to the Watkins in Wales thanks to Roy.

What also probably hasn't come through the posts is that they are fascinating people in their own rights. We shared a lot in common - from living in France to not understanding George W. Bush - so it was nice just to spend time with them. They handled the vegetarian with aplomb too ;)

Genealogy: Family Bible

In the contuining genealogy quest, I have the Getz family Bible back from Tom and Sherry. There's not a ton of information in the Bible, but it does have the births of my Great Great grandmother and grandfather on my maternal side.

I updated the birthdates of all my great aunts and uncles, and now I'm tracking down my great great grandmother's birth certificate, which is turning out to be a little tricky. Apparently New York has birth records starting the year AFTER she was born - so we might need to rely on census records. We'll see.

Genealogy

Ran across an article in the NYTimes about genealogy, and it pointed me to a new website out there for tracking your family's ancestors.

Although other genealogy software has been out there for some time, this Internet-based application allows you to easily share and network your family tree. Instead of having to take responsbility for the entire tree, you can send parts out to family to either add or see for themselves. Also if distant relatives are also using the software, you can search for them, and then add them to your tree. Kind of based on the wikipedia principle - the more people, the better.

Just to give you an idea on how fast your family tree can grow, in just 5 days we were up to 455 family members. With a little searching online, I was able to find my paternal grandmother's line going back to a Hugh Mahurin (1655-1718), who came over from Northern Ireland or Scotland. Of course, all this needs to be documented and proven, but it's quite fascinating in just the short time I've been doing it.