Blind-alleys, mysteries and frayed ends
Saturday 7 February 2009 23:11
Family History research requires a lot of hard work. Hours of research can produce a formidable social history, or it might end abruptly in a dead end. This page lists some family history problems I can't solve.
Family History research requires a lot of hard work. There are the visits to the libraries and the archives to scroll and flick through micro -film and -fiche. Countless hours, and not inconsiderable sums of money, are spent on accessing online census databases and birth, marriage and death indices. The dedicated researcher might even undertake field trips to remote cemeteries and neighbourhoods in which relatives once lived. All this work might produce a pretty impressive social history stretching back centuries in one contiguous line. Or, it might not.
As Mark Humphrys so ably puts it, "your family tree tends to either (a) end in obscurity after a few generations, or (b) goes on to connect with the vast, inter-connected web of medieval royalty and nobility in Europe, from which millions of people are provably descended (i). My personal experience is that a promising line of research tend to lead to option 'a'; an abrupt halt.
Sometimes it is possible to restart a formerly dead line of inquiry. New information can make relevant facts that otherwise pointed nowhere. A new database might become available, as was recently the case with the 1911 Census of England and Wales (though at the time of writing much of the data pertaining to Wales is yet to be loaded into that site). Eventually, these sources are exhausted, or worse, yield no new information. When that happens the family historian might write a page like this one. A page which lists those blind-alleys, mysteries and frayed ends which trail off towards obscurtity. Of course, the hope is that you might see a link between your history and this one. If this is the case, then get in touch.
Gwenllian Walters
Gwenllian gave birth (ii) to David Lewis Walters on 22 July 1888 at the Union Workhouse, Llanelly, Carmarthenshire. At this time Gwenllian resided at Market Street, Llanelly and worked as a Domestic Servant in Mount Pleasant, Llanelly.
David was for a time known by the nickname 'Dai Sam' as he was fostered by Thomas and Margaret Samuel. Margaret was Gwenllian's older sister. Once this sibling relationship was established it was possible to know Gwenllian's place and date of birth (Margam, 1868) and ancestors (see the 'Walters' page for more information).
What is unknown is precisely what became of Gwenllian after 1888. Did see marry, emmigrate or die? There is no good eveidence that she married or died in Britain and so might have moved overseas. The 1891 Cenus of England and Wales does list (iii) a G. Walters working as a servant and probably also living at the Thomas Arms hotel, Old Road, Llanelli. This G. Walters was born at the right time and place to be a likely match for Gwenllian. Gwenllian is not listed in the 1901 Cenus of England and Wales, and I don't yet know if she is listed in the 1911 Census.
Do you have any information relating to Gwenllian Walters born about 1868, Margan, Glamorgan, Wales? If so, please get in touch.
Notes and references
- This is not to suggest that I am interested in royalty. It is however undeniable that the genealogies curated by the European aristocracies are a valuable resource to family historians. If it is possible to prove your connection to one of these trees then your tree suddenly connects to a huge network of families. See Humphrys' 'What is the point of Royal Descents' for more on this topic.
- FreeBMD: Births Sep. 1888, Llanelly, 11a, 857.
- Ancestry.co.uk: 1891 Wales Census [database on-line]: Class: RG12; Piece: 4495; Folio 94; Page 23; GSU roll: 6099605.