Wales

• Wales - Archives and Libraries - links and information.

Here is a substantial Wales related bibliography of books of General Interest for Family Historians

Here is a collection of books from Gareth's Help Page

• History books  
• Indexing Project
• Research Books
• Catalogue of books I have owned and either indexed or extracted content from or both.

Theses collection at the NLW    "includes approximately 50,000 theses and dissertations which have been presented for postgraduate degrees in higher educational institutions in Wales. The collection comprises theses and dissertations arising from all PhD and research Masters degrees, as well as taught Masters dissertations which have a Welsh interest or have gained a distinction.
You can view the full text of any electronic theses by becoming a member of the Library"

Manuscripts. The NLW's manuscripts collection. "Go back in time and walk in the footsteps of our ancestors through these digital versions of some of the Library's greatest treasures."

Printed material at the NLW.   "Browse through the first Welsh book to be published, or review the state of education in Wales in the 1800s."

Welsh Books Council.

David Lloyd George's Diary for 1886. The National Library of Wales site.

The Dictionary of Welsh Biography   presents the lives of eminent Welsh people who have made a significant contribution to Welsh life. It is an electronic version of the volumes published by the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, together with new articles commissioned by the Society.

Gravestone Photographic Resource - an international grave monument directory

The Find-a-Grave (Wales) page gives details of the graves of the rich and famous together with biographical information.

Graveyard Welsh - a guide to interpreting Memorial Inscriptions.

Reading Monumental Inscriptions on the Clwyd FHS site

England and Wales - Census - links and information.

Census Dates and Census Returns inc 1851 census - Instructions to the Householder

The Instructions to the Enumerators from the 1841 Census

Seamen in the censuses plus some BMD data

Abbreviations used in census returns, codes etc

Census for England, Wales and Scotland: missing pieces. Details on Find My Past

Wales - census aid - piece numbers etc to allow a TNA search (for area descriptions etc)

NHS 1939 Register Service - National Archives site. "The 1939 Register, taken on 29 September 1939, provides a snapshot of the civilian population of England and Wales just after the outbreak of the Second World War. The information was to produce Identity Cards and, once rationing was introduced in January 1940, to facilitate the issuing of ration books. Information in the Register was also used to administer conscription and division of labour, and to monitor and control the movement of the population caused by military mobilisation and mass evacuation."

Lodger

With reference to census returns in particular,a lodger just got accomodation whereas a boarder got meals as well.

Here is an extensive Timeline 

Sites to help you find current churches of denominations listed in our church database

• Church in Wales. "The Church in Wales is made up of over 380 parishes."

• Roman Catholic - Organised by diocese

• Congregational Federation  "Bringing together independent free churches for mutual support and the advancement of the Christian faith"

• Congregational Federation in Wales   "The Congregational Federation in Wales is a Christian Denomination whose Churches use the English language for worship. They are situated mainly in South and East Wales. It has a very friendly relationship with the Welsh-speaking Congregational Denomination, Undeb yr Annibynwyr Cymraeg."

• The Methodist Church in Wales  Circuits map

• South Wales Baptist Association. "We currently have over 120 Baptist churches as part of our Association. The majority of these churches are also part of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (Baptists Together)."

• The Baptist Union of Great Britain. ​Church Finder in Wales

• United Reform Church. National Synod of Wales  Church finder

• Quakers in Wales Find meetings

• Church of Jesus Christ locations in Wales

• Unitarians in Wales Links to church sites

• Jehovah's Witnesses. Find a meeting

• Wales - Church History- links and information.

• Wales - Church Records - links and information.

• Wales - Civil Registration - links and information.

• Wales - Court Records- links and information.

• Wales - Description and Travel- links and information.

• Geograph
• Flickr

Held at Ceredigion Archives;

• Slater's Trade Directory 1858-9 for Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, North and South Wales. And some other directories for the period 1830 - 1926.

Digital Library of Historical Directories A Project by the University of Leicester -  there are  54 entries for Wales on there

Throughout the Wales county pages are transcriptions from the CD of Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary 1833  by Archive CD Books

Kelly's Directory South Wales 1910. Sections from this CD by Archive CD Books are extracted as follows;

• General description of South Wales together with a breakdown of the Poor Law Unions. Also details of the 3 District Probate Registries.
• List of the Principal Seats in South Wales
• Principal Markets and Fairs in South Wales

Follow the Leader: My Welsh Ancestors' Immigration  An article on the Family Tree Magazine site by Vanessa Wieland dated June 2018

The Mimosa - on Clwyd FHS. "The Mimosa was a clipper ship best known for its voyage to Patagonia in Argentina in 1865, carrying the first Welsh emigrants. Their aim was to establish a Welsh colony which would preserve the Welsh language and culture, which they felt were under threat in Wales................."

Welsh in Australia - on the NLW site

History of the Welsh in Minnisota - A list of short biographies from "The History of the Welsh in Minnesota, Foreston and Lime Springs, Ia. Gathered by the Old Settlers". Editors: Rev. Thomas E. Hughes, Rev. David Edwards, Hugh G. Roberts, Thomas Hughes. Published in 1895

On Caryl Williams's site - Passenger list of the Barque "Gwen Evans" of Wales 1842 entering the Port of Boston, 15th August 1842

The British Presence in Southern Patagonia (Argentina & Chile). A really useful site - lots of databases and history

The Welsh Settlement in Patagonia - on the NLW site

THE DIARY OF KETURAH DAVIES. Part of the Welsh Family History Archive. " A transcript of the original diary written on board the emigrant vessel Schah Jehan which departed from Plymouth, England, 23rd August 1860, and arrived at Port Adelaide, Australia, 2nd December 1860. "

Researching from Abroad  A Genuki page

Australian Newspapers online - historic Australian newspapers 1803-1954 (work in progress)

Newspaper notice in the 'Cambrian' Newspaper 29th August 1873.

• "New South Wales Government - Emigration; The New South Wales Government has resumed Emigration. The classes for whom passages will be provided are those who can pay one-third of their passage money. Married couples, not exceeding 35 years of age, mechanics, farmers, miners, vine-dressers, labourers and domestic servants, not excluding small WORKING CAPITALISTS in any branch of colonial industry. They must be of sound mental and bodily health, and of good moral character. Applications either in writing or personally at No. 3 Westminster-chambers, Victoria-street, Westminster, S.W. --- Charles Cowper, Agent General

Tallis's Topographical Dictionary of England and Wales, published in 1860 in six vols, editor E. L. Blanchard.  See Welsh Family History Archive which includes county maps (showing the hundreds)
From the preface;
"In the following pages will be found fully described the past history and present aspect of every place of any significance in England and Wales, forming a work of permanent importance to the commercial world, of ready service to the tourist of the "In the following pages will be found fully described the past history and present aspect of every place of any significance in England and Wales, forming a work of permanent importance to the commercial world, of ready service to the tourist of the day, and of constant interest to the general reader, who may derive from this source a large supply of entertainment, as well as of information for the amusement and instruction of a leisure hour."

Vision of Britain - the site has the full descriptive text of 3 C19th Gazetteers (over 90,000 entries).

• Wales - Genealogy - links and information.

• Wales - Historical Geography- links and information.

• Wales - History - links and information.

• Wales -Land and Property- links and information.

• Wales -Language and Languages- links and information.

The Court of Great Sessions - at the NLW.

The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Manorial Documents Register: lists the whereabouts of manorial documents in England and Wales. The register for Wales is indexed, this is searchable by county then individual manor.

Manor

For 500 years after William the Conqueror, the manor, an agricultural estate, was the unit of local government.

Its head was the lord of the manor, literally the landlord, not necessarily a titled person, who held the land from the King.
The estate was administered by the manor court, a periodic meeting of the tenantry, presided over by the lord, or his steward.
Custom governed everything, the principle was " justice shall be done by the lord's court, not by the lord".

It should be noted that manors were not always compact geographical units, a single manor was defined by its allegiance to a particular lord. The boundaries of a manor were not confined to one parish and indeed might stretch across several.

The lord of the manor granted strips of land to his tenants in return for service, which might be rent, work on the lord's land or military obligation.
The lord's own land was the demesne.

Frankpledge was the ancient right of the village community to be responsible for each other's good behaviour and when a manorial court (Court Leet - see below) brought together all the males of the manor over the age of 12 it was called a "View of Frankpledge".

Two types of manorial court were;

• Court Baron - effectively the Lord of the Manor's personal court for dealing with tenancies and transfers of land and to enforce manorial custom.
• Court Leet - one of public jurisdiction dealing with minor offences and routine matters such as maintenance of highways - also the "View of Frankpledge" (see above). The Court Leet appointed a Constable who had a range of responsibilites such as;- collection of taxes; maintenance of lockups & stocks; supervision of jury service; apprenticing of pauper children; and many others. The jurisdiction of a constable was called a constablewick.

In Wales, the manorial system had limited impact; it existed in Pembrokeshire, Glamorgan and Monmouthshire and adjoining counties where Anglo-Norman influences extended but was barely known in the north Wales counties of Caernarvonshire, Anglesey and Merioneth.

The principal records of the manorial estate were the Court Rolls, some of these records are deposited with county Record Offices, but the principal repository for records of Welsh estates is the National Library of Wales.

A definition of ' manorial records' would include; court rolls, surveys, maps, terriers, documents and books of every description relating to the boundaries, wastes, customs or courts of a manor.

Another name for the lord of the manor was squire

Ordnance Survey Town Plans of England and Wales, 1840s-1890. On the NLS site. "The most detailed topographic mapping by Ordnance Survey covering towns with more than 4,000 people in England and Wales from the 1840s to the 1890s. Our coverage currently just includes 38 towns in south-west England, as well as London (1893-96), but it will expand geographically as scanning continues....."

Parry's Map of North and South Wales;  On Ceredigion Archives/Catalogues with photographs, postcards

Engravings or prints of subjects, places and personages in Wales, including maps; On Ceredigion Archives/Catalogues with photographs, postcards

For War Department purposes only: censorship and the Ordnance Survey - on the NLW blog

Places of Wales - A NLW site  "Search and browse over 300,000 entries from the tithe maps of Wales and accompanying apportionment documents using original and present-day maps"

The National Library of Scotland has put numerous maps online inluding Ordnance Survey maps for England and Wales from c.1900 which can be overlaid on current maps.

Welsh county maps on UK Genealogy Archives

Ordnance Survey 1:10,560 maps - on the British History Online site. Full Welsh coverage

Lewis Morris and William Morris  Charts of the Welsh coastline by Lewis Morris (1701-1765) and his son, William Morris

Thomas Taylor The Principality of Wales exactly described [...] published by Thomas Taylor (fl. 1670-1730) in 1718 was the first published atlas relating entirely to Wales

Old maps which were obtained courtesy of Ancestry, who retain copyright and reserve all rights in them.

• 1. England & Wales December 9th 1643  (Districts held by the King/Parliament)
• 2. England & Wales 1660 - 1892

The National Library of Wales - holds one of the main historical and contemporary collections of Welsh mapping. Their pages lead to a growing body of online information about the collection.

Maps of Wales, provided by John Ball, shows the location of Wales within the British Isles and the positions of its pre-1974 counties and towns.

'A Vision of Britain through time' contains both C19th & C20th maps which have parish boundaries marked on them
Search on a parish name, then scroll down to Administrative Units/parish name - AP/CP, click on that link, scroll down to link Historic boundaries which takes you to the map section.

Coflein   (Royal Conmmission on the Ancient & Historical Documents of Wales)     The site has  very detailed modern maps  - down to individual field level for instance, with named roads

An exceptionally useful set of maps showing parish boundaries, on a one inch to the mile scale, was until 2007 available on CD-ROM - see: Kain, R.J.P., Oliver, R.R., Historic Parishes of England and Wales: an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: History Data Service, UK Data Archive [distributor], 17 May 2001. SN: 4348. See also details of a name extraction project covering various Welsh counties.

‘Medicine and Health in Wales before the NHS’ project..  "The ‘Medicine and Health in Wales before the NHS’ project was established to promote the Medical Print Collection and enhance online access by cataloguing the entire Collection, with items published before 1900 to be digitised. The project began in November 2018 and was funded by the Wellcome Trust."  National Library of Wales/collections/printed materials

Midwifery and Maternity Care for Single Mothers in Eighteenth-Century Wales by Angela Muir

The oldest surviving inscriptions are on brasses and around effigies inside churches.
The majority were for peers, knights and church dignatories.
In the C16 the custom spread of burying the gentry and more prosperous merchants inside the church building and the number of memorials on the walls and floor increased accordingly.
However an interior memorial does not mean that the deceased was buried in the church, the clergy objected to this and so the actual burial was often in the church yard.

Burial ground monuments are of many kinds; wooden deadboards, vertical headstones, footstones, horizontal ledger stones and tombs of many types.

In the C17 the oldest churchyard inscriptions, except for the wealthy, were probably all engraved on wooden boards supported by wooden posts.
Stone and slate gradually came into use, local materials and craftsmen for the carving were normally used.

It was in the C18 that the inscriptions became the most fulsome, and informative, with names, dates, place of residence commonplace.

Memorial inscriptions tend to give more information than the parish register but are more prone to error because normally a stone cannot be put in place until about a year after the burial to allow the earth to settle.
Details should therefore be checked with the registers.

Sadly, many individual MIs have become illegible through weathering or vertical stones have fallen, in some cases whole sections of older cemeteries have the headstones cleared to one side - on safety grounds presumably.

I'm not sure when the tradition started but in my local cemetery in Gwauncaegurwen it seems the norm for an "old saying", for want of a better description, to be inscribed on the gravestone as well.
One of the most popular I have seen is

"Hedd Perffaith Hedd" [Peace Perfect Peace].

See also Graveyard & History Book Welsh on this site, which includes more typical 'sayings' as well as a word dictionary.

The MIs in many churchyards and cemeteries have now been transcribed, and often indexed, by Family History Societies and are available for purchase from them.

[Gareth Hicks]

• Wales -Merchant Marine - links and information.

The National Library of Wales blog with the #LoveMaps  tag has  has features on;

• The Great War in maps

For War Department purposes only: censorship and the Ordnance Survey - on the NLW blog

Wales Remembers -  The First World War 1914-1918

Find my Past (subscription)  Discover your British military ancestor from the Absent Voters Lists from 1918 until 1921. There was a General Election in 1918. All those away from their place of residence (so including all men in the army) were listed on a Absent Voters Lists

The Royal Regiment of Wales was formed in 1969 by the amalgamation of two of Wales' most famous and distinguished regiments, namely The South Wales Borderers (24th Foot) and The Welch Regiment (41st/69th Foot).

South African War  [Boer] 1899-1902 , Welsh casualty List. Published by Glamorgan Family History Society.

Militia

Militia, of feudal origins, were a military force raised from the local population as standby in emergencies.

The 1672 Militia Act set up a system of military service based on statutory obligation.
The threat of a French invasion in the 1750s resulted in the passing of a further Act and militia regiments were reorganised in all counties of England & Wales and *parishes were required to draw up annual lists of adult males.

Milita forces were formed and disbanded regularly over the centuries in line with national emergencies.

In 1807 the Local Militia Act created local militia within each county which weren't required to serve outside their own or adjacent boundaries.

Annual militia returns were submitted to Quarter Sessions by the Lords Lieutenant of each county.

*The parish militia lists have been preserved in many County Archives and cover the general period 1758-1831, for instance I obtained the following detail when researching my wife's ancestors;
Hertfordshire Militia Lists [Stevenage];- Richard Norman 1778,1779,1781,1782, labourer

Places of Wales - A NLW site  "Search and browse over 300,000 entries from the tithe maps of Wales and accompanying apportionment documents using original and present-day maps"

The List of Historic Place Names of Wales  "is a groundbreaking and innovative resource that contains hundreds of thousands of place names collected from historical maps and other sources. It provides a fascinating insight into the land-use, archaeology and history of Wales." (RCAHMW)

Glossary of Welsh Place Name Elements - on John Ball's site

• Wales -Names,Personal - links and information.

Richard Heaton's Index to Digitalised British and Irish Newspapers

Welsh Newspapers Online - A NLW site - search for/browse articles etc on designated newspapers

Newsplan Cymru  Search here on a place name and it will report on which newspapers cover the area and where extant copies are held

Y Brython. National Library of Wales 'Treasurers' series. A Welsh-language magazine published in Tremadog between 1858 and 1863 under the editorship of Alltud Eifion (1815-1905) and D. Silvan Evans (1818-1903). "The Welsh-language magazine, Y Brython (1858-1863), has been digitised by the National Library in order to consider the amount of work involved and the issues which might arise from a project to digitise the whole of the Library's collection of pre-1900 Welsh and Wales-related periodicals on preservation microfilm....."

Online Newspapers Wales  - links to Welsh newspaper web sites.

ABYZ News - links to Welsh newspaper web sites

Welsh Newspapers Welsh Library, University of Wales, Bangor   "Newspapers are a priceless source, and one which is used extensively for all types of research, academic or otherwise, for subjects such as local and family history, social history, advertising and sport. The collection of the Welsh Library at Bangor is one of the most comprehensive in Wales"

The British Library Newspaper Library  It holds the national archive collections in the United Kingdom of British and overseas newspapers.

• Wales - Occupations- links and information.

Welsh Journals Online provides students, teachers and researchers with free online, searchable, access to a selection of 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century Welsh and Wales-related journals held at The National Library of Wales and partner institutions. These materials cover a very wide range of subject areas, including humanities, social sciences, science and technology.
As at Jan 2012 there were c 45 journals available online.

Welsh Almanac Collection - the National Library's  "collections of early printed material also include publications for the other end of the market. An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and tabular information often arranged according to the calendar....."

Brython: A Welsh-language magazine published in Tremadog between 1858 and 1863. On the NLW's Digital Mirror site.
 "The Welsh-language magazine, Y Brython (1858-1863), has been digitised by the National Library in order to consider the amount of work involved and the issues which might arise from a project to digitise the whole of the Library's collection of pre-1900 Welsh and Wales-related periodicals on preservation microfilm"

Internet Library of Early Journals ; A digital library of 18th and 19th Century journals which currently include;

• Annual Register
• Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
• Gentleman's Magazine
• Notes and Queries
• Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
• The Builder

History of the United Kingdom -- Primary Documents  Various online transcripts including some newspapers and periodicals eg London Gazette, Penny Magazine.

For a list of denominational magazines and historical periodicals see under Religion and Religious Life

David Lloyd George's Diary for 1886. The National Library of Wales 'Treasures' series.

The National Assembly for Wales

'Welsh Members of Parliament', 1894, This book contains colourful biographical portraits of all the Welsh Members of Parliament elected to serve in the 1894 parliament. They were penned by T. Marchant Williams and the illustrations to accompany them were drawn by Will Morgan. - on the People's Collection Wales site

Crime and Punishment Database - at the NLW.
"Comprises data about crimes, criminals and punishments included in the gaol files of the Court of Great Sessions in Wales from 1730 until its abolition in 1830. The Court could try all types of crimes, from petty thefts to high treason."

Wales - Poor Law and workhouses- links and information.

Demography of Wales (Wikipedia)

Wills and Probate Records at the NLW.
Wills, which were proved in the Welsh ecclesiastical courts before the introduction of Civil Probate on 11 January 1858, have been deposited in the Library. The old indexes produced by the courts themselves have now been replaced by a new online index. Post-1858 wills for England and Wales are accessible at the Probate Dept of The Principal Registry Family Division:
Probate Search Room, First Avenue House, 42-49 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6NP.

Obituaries - (Of Welsh people of standing) - Cumulated Index: 1992 - 1997 - on the NLW site (Index is now online, scroll down left side menu)

Coroners' Records and Inquests

• Wales -Religion and Religious Life- links and information.

• Wales - Schools - links and information

• Wales - Social Life and Customs- links and information.

Association of Family History Societies of Wales.

South Wales Record Society - "The society was set up in 1982 with the aim of publishing a regular series of books and other works on the history of South Wales and particularly Glamorgan and Gwent."

The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion -  "........... seeks to promote the practice and development of the Language, Literature, Arts and Sciences of Wales."

The Welsh Legal History Society  -l "....... exists to spread knowledge of, and promote research into, the rich history of law in Wales. That history extends from a fascinating medieval indigenous legal system to the specific (sometimes surprising) application of law within Wales in more modern times."

For individual Family History Societies see: "Family History and Genealogy Societies: Wales".

Welsh Land Settlements "The Welsh Land Settlement Society was set up to create work and homes for the long term unemployed of the 1930’s depression. In Wales the most successful approach was the co-operative example that operated in Sealand and 4 other sites, which were mainly in South Wales.........."

• Wales -Taxation links and information.

• Wales -Voting Records- links and information.