Re: Bennetts Blaenywern
by Therese and Gerry Lewis
Betty asked:
I am trying to find information about me G.Grandfather, Michael Grose(or
Grace )BENNETTS. He was born Blaenywern,Talley 1851. His parents were
William BENNETTS and Grace BENNETTS formally THOMAS. This is I know
about my Welsh side of the family.Could someone tell me about the name
Blaenywern. What it means? Is the town still there?
----------------------------------------------------------------
I can't help on the Bennetts. However, Talley is a small village to the
north east of Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire. I imagine Blaenywern is the
name of a house or farm. This might be confirmed by the fact that there
is a property called "Blaenwern" in Talley according to the Postal
Address Book of Wales. "Blaenwern" has the same post code as the village
school, so I imagine it is fairly close to it. I do not have a
large-scale map of this area as Talley is not somewhere I have an
interest in family history-wise, although I did visit the Talley Abbey
ruins some years ago.
I regret to state that my knowledge of the Welsh language is abysmal,
although I can pronounce the words (or so I believe). "Wern" isn't in my
Welsh-English dictionary (unless it's a mutation of gwern which means
swamp), so Blaenywern may mean on the edge of or in front of the swamp -
which doesn't sound nice does it?
I believe it's the mutation of words which makes Welsh a difficult
language to learn.
Gerry Lewis