My Family History

For the last morning of our trip - a blustery morning with torrential showers falling as 'Storm Debi' blew across Wales - we travelled up the Rhondda valley to Pontypridd, a town that ties together the various threads of my paternal family tree. The famous old bridge in Pontypridd William Rees from Llansaint and Margaret Williams from Llansawel A marriage certificate that I have just tracked down shows that William and Margaret (already a widow) were married in Merthyr Tydfil in 1843. Whether they had first met in Carmarthenshire, or after they had migrated over to the Valleys, isn't clear. By 1851, William the 'Cabinet Maker' and his family had moved down the Rhondda valley to live in Pontypridd, and this is where my great-grandmother Sarah Jane Rees was born in 1852.   The town was still fairly small in the 1850s but was starting to grow rapidly . In the town museum, at the end of the old bridge, we found a model of the area of the town where William, Margaret...

This is the second of four posts setting out what I have pieced together about my paternal ancestry, working back from my grandparents, Thomas and Isabella. The first post showed how I have been able to trace back the family tree from  Isabella's father, Thomas Thomas, to Carmarthen - but could not go too far beyond that.  This post shows that I think I can reliably trace my tree back  from Isabella's mother, Sarah Jane Rees,  much further into the past - perhaps back to the 1730s.  William Rees and Anne Lewis - my 5th great grandparents from Llangynderyn Sarah Jane Rees - my great grandmother BIRTH ABT 1854 • Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales DEATH APR 1924 • Pontypridd, Glamorganshire, Wales CERTAINTY: 100% - confirmed by census and other records As Isabella's birth certificate indicates, her mother Sarah Jane Thomas was "formerly Rees" - so this was her maiden name before the  couple married in Pontypridd in 1872. The 1861 census usefully records Sarah Jane ...