Wisdom Wednesday: Welsh Surnames

Rowlands, John and Sheila. The Surnames of Wales. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2014. (New Edition) $39.95 www.genealogical.com

 

First published in 1996 and recently revised in a new edition, The Surnames of Wales has been considered the go-to guide on this subject. The publisher promises a new updated and expanded resource seeking to dispel many of the myths that surround names in Wales. It is illustrated by evidence taken from a survey involving more than 270,000 surnames found in parish records throughout the country.

There are four new chapters including a groundbreaking survey and glossary of Welsh given games, an important addition to the text because the geographical distribution of given names can provide clues to the origins of early patronymic surnames.

From the publisher: The first chapters “give a historical overview of Welsh names, dealing in particular with the patronymic naming system and the gradual adoption of surnames. The central chapters include a comprehensive survey of Welsh surnames and an all-important glossary of surnames…also show[ing] the distribution and incidence of surnames throughout Wales. The final chapters cover the distribution of surnames derived from the ‘ap’ prefix, the incidence of surnames derived from Old Testament names, and surname evidence for the presence of people of Welsh origin in populations outside Wales.”

Wisdom Wednesday: Colonial UK Immigrants

In the Spring, I wrote four blog posts that described distinct immigrant groups that settled in various parts of the original thirteen colonies. These posts were based on a book by genealogist, William Dollarhide. He felt that if you knew where your ancestor settled in the colonies, you could narrow the range of places he could have come from in the UK. My posts dates and topics are:

            26 Feb 2014 - British Origin of U.S. Colonists (New England Puritans)

            12 Mar - UK Origins of Virginia Cavaliers
            26 Mar - Quakers from the North Midlands
            9  Apr - Scottish/English Borderlands to Rural America

Referencce:

Dollarhide, William. British Origins of American Colonists, 1629-1775. Bountiful, Utah: Heritage Quest Genealogical Services, division of AGLL, Inc., 1998.

-A much expanded discussion of the four group's influence on American culture can be found in the following book:

Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

I found this book which uses the same four colonial groups described by Dollarhide to illustrate the history of American culture as it has changed through time. It argues that our original British folkways underlie most of our regional cultures. Oxford press states, Americans “have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time.”

-This Fall I was asked to speak on a topic where a summary of the above information would be helpful so I developed this chart:

Groups	Dates	To	From
Puritans	1629-1640	New England	East Anglia (50%)
Cavaliers	1641-1675	Chesapeake Bay	West Country & London
Quakers	1675-1715	Delaware Valley	North Midlands (67%)
Scots/Irish	1717-1775	Rural Areas/ Borders	English/Scottish Border + N Ireland

Wisdom Wednesday: Heritage Productions

I’m back! It’s been awhile since I posted here, so let me tell you about the Ohio State Genealogy Conference in Cincinnati and a new resource for books and online classes for UK, US, Irish and Canadian research.

1.       The OGS Conference was great with about 700 people registered. My travel plans went without a hitch even though the air controllers were having a job action due to the Sequester.  Thus I arrived on Thursday and only missed the morning keynote speaker.

I spoke twice on Saturday about land records and had a large number each time. They applauded at the end so I must have done something right.

Next year’s OGS Conference is in the northern part state in Sandusky at a facility called the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center from April 30-May 4, 2014.

2 .      Last year at NGS, I bought a book at the Heritage Productions booth, titled Researching English Non-Anglican Ancestors by Dr. Penelope Christensen. You can see that I referred to it many times through the year as I wrote about researching religious groups in the UK who were not affiliated with the Church of England. This year in Cincinnati, I picked up another of Dr. Christensen’s books, Researching English Poor Law and Parish Chest Records.

This publisher based in Toronto, Ontario, has a huge number of books arranged into a number of series on their website www.genealogystore.com. There are over twenty titles in their General Series, which I would term the non-geographically specific books about organizing data or writing a family history.  Then there are a number of books grouped together in the American Series, the Canadian Series, the English Series, the Irish Series and the Scottish Series. Finally there are several books about research in other European countries.

Heritage Productions is an arm of the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. They have online courses which you can take for pleasure or to receive a certificate for genealogy research in either Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland or the United States. Check this out at www.genealogicalstudies.com.

Wisdom Wednesday: Book Alert

Today I want to mention some new books that will be of interest to UK researchers. Please notice that my title indicates that this post is not a book review (because I have not read the books) but only an alert to titles that you should explore further.

The first is Greater London: The Story of the Suburbs by Nick Barrett. This came out 17 Dec 2012, and thus we all may have missed it in the holiday rush. It is available at amazon.com and in Kindle form.

If you have ancestors in the London area, you know that most books that cover the history of London do not include information about the outlying areas, many of which are now absorbed into the city itself.

From amazon.com: “By looking at the whole of the greater London area from Roman times to the present…Dr Nick Barratt is not only able to show how areas as far apart as Hendon and Streatham, Ealing and Leytonstone developed over hundreds of years but also to demonstrate the crucial role they played in the creation of the capital.”

The author, NICK BARRATT, PhD, began as a researcher at the BBC where he is now a presenter, reviewer and commentator on all aspects of history, with a particular interest in family and medieval history.

Barrett's Greater London could give you the background you are seeking. For basic how-to, you might want to check out this recently published book, Tracing Your London Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians by Jonathan Oates. It was published by my old friends at Pen and Sword Books in July 2011. There is another book in the series, Tracing Your East End Ancestors by Jane Cox from 2011.

Jonathan Oates has a newer book that came out from the same publisher on July 2012 and could potentially help many, many genealogists. It is called Tracing Your Ancestors 1066-1837. The last three books are available also at amazon.com and in Kindle version for less than $8.00 each. Without many city folks in my family tree, I think this last one will be my next purchase.