Hi all,
I have a mystery man in my THOMAS tree. He is Walter SIMON, born about 1843
in Cilcain, Flintshire (this information is from the 1871 census). He
married Ellen THOMAS probably in the early 1860s - their first known child
was born in 1866. He was a publican in 1868, a game keeper in 1871 and a
publican again before his death in Liverpool in 1880.
I would like to know who his parents were. There is a Walter SIMON born 1843
in Cilcain on the IGI, parents William and Mary, but if there was/is a lot
of SIMONs in the area this could just be a coincidence. Is SIMON a name that
features strongly in this area? I have looked at printed parish registers
for Cilcain (held at the State Library here in Melbourne) but they don't go
far enough to cover Walter. Walter himself got around a fair bit - his
children were born in various places in Denbighshire and Cardiganshire - so
if his parents were the same, maybe SIMON is not a Flintshire name and he
was only born there because that's where the family happened to be? At least
three of his children also had the wanderlust - one died in San Francisco,
one in Pittsburgh and one in Watford.
Has there ever been a large SIMON population in Flintshire, or should I look
elsewhere? Are there any particular areas where the SIMONs lived?
Many thanks,
Loretta
in Melbourne, Australia.