9. Birth Certificate again

Posted by Hywel Roberts on April 27, 2008 8:50 PM

In Blog No 8 I wrote about the problems that occur sometimes with records for people living in parishes on the borders of counties. This doesn’t only apply to counties with land boundaries as I remember some totally unexpected complications my wife once had when looking for birth details of ancestors in the Brynsiencyn area of Anglesey. She was looking, quite naturally, in the Llangefni Archives and Llangefni Registry Office without success. She eventually found them in the Caernarfon records office!

When there was a regular ferry service from Anglesey to Caernarfon, Caernarfon was the market town for the southern corner of Anglesey and people found it easier to get to Caernarfon than to Llangefni and used to register their births etc in Caernarfon rather than Llangefni. You would only know this if you knew the history of the area but staff in the County Archives and volunteers at the Gwynedd Family History Society open days are very good in bringing such complications, and the potential solutions, to your attention.

These days we have to make an appointment to go the office of the Registrar of Birth, Marriages and Deaths to register a birth but in the nineteenth century a local Registrar would visit people to register the births. If you look back at the birth Certificate for Robert Williams, born in July 1878 shown with Blog 8 you will notice that the Registrar was Matthew R Williams. He was a clockmaker by trade and I have a grandfather clock made by Matthew Williams. My mother said that he was related but I haven’t succeeded in finding the connection yet.

Matthew Williams was the son of Parc, Penmachno, which was the neighbouring farm to Tyddyn Ucha, the home of Robert Williams’ mother, Catherine Roberts, so he was most probably a close family friend rather than a relative. The authors of an excellent 1993 book “The Clockmakers of Llanrwst�, which is mainly about the famous clockmakers John and Watkin Owen, mention Matthew Williams as one of the lesser known clockmakers in the area. In their research they found only one Matthew Williams clock. I have one and I’ve subsequently found one other so there are at least three of Matthew Williams’ clocks surviving today. If anyone reading this piece knows the whereabouts of another Matthew Williams clock, with the name “M Williams, Penmachno� like mine in the photo, I’d be very interested in learning about it.

Being the Registrar of the Yspyty sub-district was a part-time job for Matthew Williams but he sadly hanged himself on 7 March 1879 at the age of 35. In the report on the unfortunate incident in Banner ac Amserau Cymru (12 March 1879) it states that he had spent the previous day in the parishes of Pentrefoelas and Yspyty Ifan collecting details of births and deaths. This would indicate that people would get a message to the Registrar about a birth or a death and he would arrange to visit to collect and record the details.

The Birth Certificate is one of the key documents in tracing your family tree as you will get you will get the exact birth date and details of the father and occupation and address at the time. You will also get the mother’s maiden name. You will always get the mother’s name but in the cases of illegitimate births there will be no name for the father and I’ll give an example of this at some later blog.

Finding a connection with the Registrar, as I did in this case, is an unexpected bonus which you sometimes get when researching your family history. And the story of the clock is itself an interesting story which I’ll write sometime.

GFH Society Annual General Meeting, Saturday 17 May 2008, 2.00 pm at Yr Aelwyd, Stryd yr Eglwys, Caernarfon.
Guest Speaker: Rev Dr Ben Rees, Liverpool.
More about this meeting and the Liverpool connection in the next Blog

The GFH Society meeting for May are:

Bangor, Saturday 10 May Branch Outing: Rhyd Ddu and Nantgwynant with Margaret Dunn

Caernarfon, No meeting

Dolgellau, 8 May (second Thursday of each month) 7.00pm at the Royal Ship Hotel:
Penri Jones Evans, “Hanes Tref y Bala�

Llandudno, No meeting

Llangefni, 15 May, Mystery trip

Pwllheli, No meeting

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More about Birth Certificates

Posted by Hywel Roberts on April 13, 2008 10:25 PM

Last time I wrote about my great grandfather’s Birth Certificate and the example shown was a copy of the register entry of William William’s birth on 29 November 1851. The copy shown was prepared by the then Registrar, Arthur Owen, and dated 16 August 1921. More experienced readers will know that he obtained this copy in preparation for his seventieth birthday on 29 November 1921. He would have needed the certificate in order to be able to prove his age in making an application to receive his old age pension, which at that time was paid at the age of 70. Unfortunately he didn’t get much benefit from his old age pension as he died on 3 February 1922.

This time I show a copy of the Birth Certificate of my grandfather, Robert Williams who was the second of four sons of William Williams and Catherine Roberts. He was born in July 1878 and you will notice that the copy is dated March 1948 which again indicates that it was obtained ahead of his application for an old age pension at the age of 70 in July 1948.

You will notice that his father’s name is down as William P. Williams even though we saw from his birth certificate that he was born William Williams. As he was exactly the same name as his father, he decided to adopt the middle name “Pritchard� taken after his grandfather William Pritchard. He was known, certainly during his adult life, as William Pritchard Williams and I’ve seen many documents that he has signed as William Pritchard Williams. He didn’t change his name officially but simply adopted the middle name. If one was starting to trace the family tree from complete ignorance then this type of change of name could lead to much confusion but I was lucky that I’d listened to my grandparents and then my mother talking about him and I knew about the additional name.

Robert Williams went on to do exactly the same and adopted the middle name “Cadwalader� after his grandfather on his mother’s side. He was subsequently known as Robert Cadwalader Williams despite his birth certificate stating simply Robert Williams.

The family lived at Talywaen which was a terraced house on the main road going into Penmachno but bigger than the Glanypwll terraced houses. Talywaen looks in very good condition today.

On the top of both certificates is shown the Registration District, Llanrwst and the Sub-District, Yspyty. It then states that this is the Counties of Caernarvon and Denbigh. In most cases the District and Sub-District will be within one county but sometimes, as in this case, a sub-district can cover parts of two counties. The Parish of Penmachno was wholly within the old county of Caernarvonshire but the main town in the area, Llanrwst, was in the old county of Denbigh and this has caused me problems from time to time. The sub-district of Yspyty covered the parishes of Penmachno, Yspyty Ifan and Pentrefoelas, the second two being in Denbighshire.

If you’re interested in a parish that is on the border with another county you should check that the nearest main town is within the same county otherwise you could encounter difficulties as I’ve had with Llanrwst being within Denbighshire.

The GFH society meeting for remainder of April and early May are:

Bangor, 10 May: Branch Outing “Rhyd Ddu and Nantgwynant with Margaret Dunn�

Caernarfon, 24 April (last Thursday of each month) 7.00pm at the The Library, Lôn Pafiliwn: Members Evening - talks given by members about aspects their family history

Dolgellau, 8 May (second Thursday of each month) 7.00pm at the Royal Ship Hotel:
Penri Jones Evans, “Hanes Tref y Bala�

Llandudno, 14 April (second Monday of each month) 7.00pm: An evening in the Conwy Archives, Old Board School, Lloyd Street, Llandudno.

Llangefni, 17 April (third Thursday of each month) 7.15pm at Capel Smyrna, Ffordd Glanhwfa: Visit to Yr Aelwyd undertaking research

Pwllheli, 18 April (third Friday of each month) 7.00pm at Capel Seion, Lon Dywod:
John Dilwyn Williams “Gair o brofiad�

Ask your Archivist

I’ve been sent information about special sessions being organised by the Archives Service in Ynys Môn. The first session is at Holyhead Library, Thursday 17 April 2p.m. - 7p.m

• Have you wondered how to start tracing your family history?
• Have you ever wondered about the history of your house?
• Do you want to know more about a subject or a place on Anglesey?
• Then come along and ask Anne Venables. You can get advice on how to go about doing your own research which includes how to use the Anglesey Archives in Llangefni. Once you’ve started you’ll find it hard to stop!

By appointment only: If you wish to attend the above session or any of the further sessions listed below you should telephone 01248 752083 to book your place.

Porthaethwy Thursday 24 April, 2-7pm

Amlwch Thursday 1 May, 2-7pm

Benllech Tuesday 13 May, 2-5pm

Cemaes Monday 19 May, 2-6pm

Rhosneigr Wednesday 4 June, 2-4.30 pm

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