Greetings,
I just received the following information from Roy who approves of me
forwarding it to you. (Please don't misunderstand....I don't know Latin,
but knowing Italian does help as its base is in Latin. He refers to the
fact that I can read script in the 17th century. He was telling me how
many people are in tears at the NWL as they can't. Well, I'll take kleenex
anyway! <G>
When the info he mentions arrives, I'll copy and forward it to those of you
interested. Let me know your addresses, however.
Enjoy,
Emily
Dear Emily,
I'm glad to hear that you read old scripts - the records are mostly in
Latin, but it is very obvious. The main thing is to know dates and numbers
(and abbreviations). A few wills are in Welsh, but not many - the language
was not recognized within English law.
Other parish records do start earlier (1599 for Llandderfel; 1615 for
Llanycil) and all BT's start 1660. I think there are transcipts of the
registers now (I have my own of Llandderfel, but only up to 1629). There's
a good computer index to all original wills in the NLW (and they are slowly
adding register copy wills, but those are still available only in the
volumes. I have a list of all Penllyn wills - except for the inevitable few
I will have missed, which seems to include your John Evan of 1697. I'll
check that on Saturday in the library.
The "ab"/"ap" debate is another of the trivial issues that can become
annoying - nowadays everyone says "ap" in all positions, though the old
word was "mab" - in pedigree mss you see both, and also the use of
"fab"
for son of a mother (quite a few Welsh pedigrees mix male/female lines.)
I'm afraid some of us Welsh people can become a bit too pedantic about the
language - and much of what people say is pure nonsense (such as the notion
that 's' was added to the patronym by English scribes, or that 's' ending
names were from English speaking families - all utter rubbish.)
Townships - another wonderful source of debate: it is important to know all
the possible names before going to primary sources. In Llanfor, they are
(from N to S) - Ucheldre, Garn, Llaithgwm, Ciltalgarth, Penmaen, Tre 'r
llan (ie. the village), Brynbanon, Cynlas, Nantlleidiog, Betws. Some of
them are just a single main farm with its cottages and outbuidings
(Brynbanon, Garn, Cynlas); the others are fairly large extents with
scattered farms and cottages. Also, they have changed over the years.
Cynlas used to be part of Llandderfel; also Llaithgwm, which used to be a
township of Llandderfel, is now part of Ucheldre. Frongoch also used to be
considered its own township, but then became part of Ucheldre (or Garn...).
If you let me have your street address I'll send a copy of a good map for
townships, and I'll include a copy of the Penllyn lay subsidy of 1293 which
gives a good idea about the size of townships and their names. Have I
forgotten anything? O yes. I'm happy for you to copy anything to your email
group; I'd just like the usual acknowledgement if it's from a published
article. Good hunting!