Great great Grandfather, William Brown

I finally figured out why I haven't been able to find the William Brown family in the 1861 Welsh census documents. It's because in 1861 William, his wife Hanna (Owens) Brown, and their son Thomas were living in Bridgend in the county of Glamorgan. And it just happens that portions of the 1861 census have been lost, including four neighborhoods in Bridgend. Yesterday, I was able to find the birth records for Thomas Brown, who was born in 1858 in Bridgend, and my Great Grandmother, Isabella Brown, who was born in 1862 in Bridgend. I'd say that the span of births of the two children are proof-positive that the Browns were living in Bridgend in 1861 and are, therefore, among those whose census records have been lost.

Saying goodbye to Dudley

With more research, I discovered why the Davis family decided to move back to Wales after just a few years in Dudley, Worcestershire County, England. I was fortunate to glean the following information from a FamilyTreeMaker.com site devoted to the ancestors of Clark Jay Holloway:

Mr. William Lee, a government investigator, made a survey of the town of Dudley, Worcestershire, in connection with the Public Health Act of 1848. When the Health Act was passed, Dudley was a center of English industrial activity. In the preceding ten years the population had increased from 30,000 to 40,000, but the health of the people was appalling, for scarcely a year passed without some fearful epidemic occurring. For instance, in 1832, six hundred people were killed by cholera alone and, in 1847 the town was swept by Typhus, to be followed in 1849 by another outbreak of cholera.

Throughout these epidemics there is no evidence that the local authority ever took any preventive action and the public Health Act of 1848 was completely ignored. The greatest defects of Dudley were the lack of proper drainage system and the inadequate supply of water. The disposal of refuse was very simple. The more respectable people had a cesspit, but the less respectable people kept a bucket in the house and this they emptied into the roadway during the night, hoping the wind, rain or roving pigs would have removed the contents by morning. The large mass of the people, however, made ‘privies’ of every unoccupied corner of the town.

The report also dealt with the inadequate water supply and compared the health statistics of Dudley with other industrial areas. The average age of death was a very rough indication of the health of a community. In 1853 (after the Davis family had left) the life expectancy for the village of Dudley was sixteen years.

Now I understand why they left! To have a life expectancy in Dudley that low, the majority of children must have been dying before their sixteen birthday.

The Mystery of Mary Davis

I've discovered another mystery with the Davis family. My great great great grandfather, John Davis, had a daughter named Mary. I always assumed that she was born in Wales with the rest of her brothers and sisters. But upon closer examination, I discovered that the census gatherers in 1851 recorded that Mary was born in the English town of Dudley, Worcestershire county, in 1846. Dudley is almost 100 miles north of the Welsh town of Blaenavon where the Davis family was living in 1841. When I looked at the 1861 census document, Mary is reported as being born in "Berbehard" in the county of Shropshire. Now, since the distance from Dudley to the Shropshire/Worcestershire border is quite short -- less than ten miles I believe -- they could have been living near the border. However, I've found no town named "Berbehard" anywhere in the vicinity.

From what I've read on the web, Dudley was not the nicest place to live during the 1840s. Back then, this area was referred to as the "Black Country" for the dense clouds of smoke belched continuously from thousands of coal-fired hearths and furnaces. These polluted the environment with vast amounts of soot. In addition to highly concentrated manufacturing enterprises, Dudley was associated with the invention of the steam engine (it was first operated near Dudley Castle in 1712) and in 1821 the first iron steamship was built in the Dudley area at the Horseley Ironworks.

By 1851, the Davis family had moved back to Wales and were living in the village of Trevethin, only six miles from where they were living in 1841. I'm sure it was no easy task in the 1840s to pick up and move 100 miles away to a new city. Certainly, work must have been plentiful in Wales in the 1840s. Wales was the industrial capital of the world back then. So why did they move and almost immediately move back? I would love to find out.

The mystery as to why the Davis family wasn't consitent in reporting Mary's birthplace may, in part, be due to the fact that there were numerous changes to county boundaries over the years. In some cases it was done to tidy up historic anomalies, such as tiny detached pieces of one county being entirely surrounded by another. Such changes have taken place piecemeal over many years, with some such detached areas surviving to as recently as 1974. One notable example is the northern piece of Worcestershire containing the town of Dudley, which was originally entirely surrounded by Staffordshire.

So, maybe the Davis family meant to say Staffordshire when they told the census worker "Shropshire" in 1851. If that were true, then the mystery of Mary's true birthplace could be easily solved.

59 Days and Counting.

That's right, my last day at the Nevada Department of Public Safety is just 59 days away. When I started this Blog I had six months left. The time has flown by so fast, I find it almost startling.

If you're just tuning into this blog, welcome. I created this space to chroncical my future trip to the United Kingdom once I retire from state government where I have spent the last twenty-five years. My intent in going to the UK is to search for the various towns and villages where my paternal ancestors lived for generations before immigrating to America, hence the focus here on family genealogy.

If you have any questions or observations, please make use of the comments section and I'll be happy hear from you.

Cheers!

Big Football Game -- Sunday, January 2, 1910.

For most of my life I knew very little about my grandfather, Thomas Davis. My dad never spoke of his father's exploits as far as I remember. It wasn't until my mother died and I decided to take up where she left off with the family genealogy that I discovered that my namesake had been a football player. On the above date, Tom Davis took part in a football game between the teams of the Battleship Nebraska, on which he was a crewman, and the Battleship Missouri. The contest took place at American League Park in Washington, D.C., and involved the championship for the North Atlantic Fleet no less. It was a festive event with the bands from both ships providing the entertainment. I gleaned this information from the New York Times archives which provided me with the names of many of the U.S.S. Nebraska's crew. The clipping also said something very interesting. It said that, "Thomas Davis, J.B. Brine, and many others well known in the athletic world were...present." Now that's interesting! Was my grandfather really a well-known sports figure in his younger days? Obviously, more research is needed.

U.S. 1890 Census where are you?

When I first started tracing my dad's ancestors back in time from him, I repeatedly came up against a problem when I wanted 1890 census data. There's a good reason I had trouble. On January 10, 1921, a fire in the Commerce Department building, Washington, DC, resulted in the destruction of most of the 1890 census, to the woe of researchers ever since. For more detailed information, see Kellee Blake, "'First in the Path of the Firemen:' The Fate of the 1890 Population Census," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 64-81 (Spring 1996), Part 1 and Part 2.

How do you pronouce "Rhydderch?"

I found a site on the web crafted by John Ball of Breconshire, Wales, that provides the pronunciation for those many consonant-rich Welsh town names. You can find his web site here.

I asked John if he would help me pronounce the name of my Breconshire ancestors, the Rhydderchs. John says Rhydderch is pronouced like "RUTHERCH."

"where:
'ruther' is pronounced as in the word 'brother';
the emphasis is on the first syllable (as in 'brother');
the final consonant 'ch' is pronounced as in the Scottish word 'loch'.

The name RODERICK is an English form of the Welsh Rhydderch."

Well, now that John has helped me with the pronunciation, it's easy to see why census workers butchered up the Rhydderch name decade after decade. Here's a few links to John's various web pages:

John's Homepage: here
Images of Wales: here
Welsh Family History Archive: here

What happened to Thomas and Mary?

Today I stumbled over something that had thus far escaped my notice. My Great, great Grandparents, Thomas and Elizabeth Davis, had two children while living in Yorkshire, England, who did not survive. Thomas Davis Junior, born in 1859, and Mary Davis, born in 1861, are missing from the 1871 census. I didn't notice they were not present because my great, great grandparents had two more children once they had returned to Wales and these children were also named Thomas and Mary. Thomas number two was born in 1867 and Mary number two was born in 1869 in the county of Glamorgan.

So what happened to the first Thomas and Mary? I checked for Yorkshire death notices for both children, but found only an 1866 listing for a young Thomas "Davis", not "Davies" as the family was calling themselves while in Yorkshire.

So I checked death notices for the Welsh county of Glamorgan where the family had relocated by 1867. There I found a Thomas and Mary Davies, both born on the correct dates of 1859 and 1861, who had died in the fall of 1866.

Naturally, I started wondering what might have caused both children to die around the same time. I soon discovered that Britain was experiencing the third of three great cholera epidemics in 1866. According to one source I found on the web, as many as 14,000 people died throughout the island. Incredibly, my search revealed that a total of 146 people named Davies died in the same district in 1866.

Now here's the most interesting part. Thomas and Elizabeth Davis, my great great grandparents had a total of five children while living in Yorkshire, England. The two youngest, as we've seen, probably died in the great cholera epidemic of 1866. The next oldest of the five children, young George Davis, somehow survived that tragic time to one day become a very, very important person in my life -- my great grandfather.

UK Trip Update

For those of you who've tuned in late, I constructed this blog to record the myriad of details that have gone into planning for my upcoming trip to Scotland, England, and Wales. The purpose of the trip is to go to all the various towns and villages where my various paternal ancestors lived before they immigrated to the United States in the 1860s and 1870s. At this point everything seems to be moving ahead smoothly as the airline reservations, car-rental, B&B selection, and acquisition of travel passes are in place.

Naturally, since this trip is all about genealogy, what you see in the posting section tends toward observations on my ancestors. Still, you might find some interesting discoveries I have made along the way concerning travel in general.

Please let me know if you notice any errors or inconsistencies in the narrative. My email address is writeguy47@aol.com

Thanks much.

Great Grandfather, George Davis

My great great grandfather named his first-born George. If the name succession listed in the previous posting is correct, my great great great great grandfather may have been a George also. Here's what I found on the Web (part from Wikipedia) about the history of George:

The name George was drived From the Greek name Γεωργιος (Georgios) which was derived from the Greek word γεωργος (georgos) meaning "farmer, earthworker", itself derived from the elements γη (ge) "earth" and εργον (ergon) "work".

In Christian hagiography Saint George (ca. 275-281 – April 23, 303[2]) was a soldier in the Guard of Emperor Diocletian in the Roman Empire, venerated as a martyr.

Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Eastern Catholic Churches. He is immortalised in the tale of George and the Dragon and is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. His memorial is celebrated on 23 April.

St. George is the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort, Beirut, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Lod and Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organizations and disease sufferers.

Wow, busy guy!

Old English Naming Patterns

Here's something interesting I found on the web that might help me figure out why children received the names they did in my ancestral tree:

The first son was named after the father's father.
The second son was named after the mother's father.
The third son was named after the father.
The fourth son was named after the fathers eldest brother.
The first daughter was named after the mother's mother.
The second daughter was named after the father's mother.
The third daughter was named after the mother.
The fourth daughter was named after the mother's eldest sister.

The Rhydderchs of Llanelli, Breconshire County

My ancestors, the Rhydderchs, claim on their census forms from the mid 1800s to have been born in the village of Llanelli (or Llanelly) in the county of Breconshire around the beginning of the 19th century. Researching on the internet, I discovered that the population of Llanelli in 1795 was only 500 people. Considering most families had from five to ten members in those years, there would have been relatively few families in Llanelli, perhaps between 50 and 100, when the Rhydderchs started having children there. When I researched how many Llanelli males had the name Rhydderch (or something similar) and also recorded a birthdate sometime around the date of my great, great, great grandfather's in 1810, I found several:

Rosser Roderick, born 1795
William Rytharsh, born 1801
Watkin Rudderch, born 1806.

I suspect that all of these men are Rhydderchs, a name that census-takers tended to butcher unmercifly, and are brothers of my ancestor, Thomas Rhydderch. Thomas was born in 1810. In 1841, he, too, was using the name "Rudderch," just as we find Watkin doing in that time period.

By 1810, the population of Llanelli had jumped from 500 to over 2,000 as the industrial revolution reached southern Breconshire.