On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 06:03:08 +0100
Dianne Guy wrote :
Would anyone explain to me about Maelo Saesneg .I have been
unsucsessfull in
getting my Tides (born 1875) and his siblings birth certificates, 5 of
there 7 children where babtized at St Winefrides in Holywell. If the Maelo
Saesneg app;ies how do i get birth certificates , i have asked loads of
people no one seems to know, many thanks if you could help.Dianne UK.
Hello Dianne,
It's actually Maelor Saesneg :-)
Until 1976, when the politicians destroyed the traditional structure of
our counties, Flintshire had three quite separate parts. (In fact,
before 1889, it had nine separate parts, but we won't go into that
now!)
There's quite a nice map, showing the old counties of Wales, and the
three parts of Flintshire, at this web site :
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/geogdata/ngw/map.htm
One of the three detached parts was quite small - it was known as
"Marford and Hoseley", to the north of Wrexham. Until 1840, it was in
the parish of Gresford, and then it became part of the new parish of
Rossett.
Maelor Saesneg was the larger detached part of Flintshire. It was
(is!) that area to the south-east of Wrexham, which includes the
parishes of Bangor on Dee (also known as Bangor Iscoed, or Bangor
Monachorum), Overton, Worthenbury, Penley, Hanmer, Bronnington,
Bettisfield, and Iscoyd (also known as Whitewell - and not to be
confused with Isycoed!)
However, Holywell was in the centre of the main part of Flintshire - so
I'm afraid that your question "If Maelor Saesneg applies, how do I get
birth certificates?" doesn't really mean anything.
Births in Holywell should have been registered with the Holywell
Registrar; and they would have had absolutely nothing to do with Maelor
Saesneg, which is 25 or 30 miles distant.
Until 1874, it was the duty of the Registrar to go out and about, and
seek out new births for registration. Unlike today, there was no real
obligation on the _parents_ to register the birth.
It's widely accepted that the proportion of non-registrations of births
in the Holywell registration district, before the rules were changed in
1874, is much higher than the national average - so it's quite possible
that the births were never registered.
The other possibility is that the children were born in another
registration district, and perhaps brought back "home" to Holywell for
the baptisms.
There are details of the Registration Districts for Flintshire on the
relevant GENUKI page, at
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/FLN/RegDistricts/
--
Regards,
Vic Roberts
vroberts(a)netcomuk.co.uk