Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

Paraphrasing C. V. Wedgwood, I knew the end before I considered the beginning I was searching for traces of a Scottish family named Makeig, ostensibly from nineteenth century Bristol. But on finding, in the census of 1851, the name of my great-great grandfather John in a Bristol parish, I discovered to my surprise that he had been born in Cardigan. The beginning therefore was an unknown quantity never had there been any suggestion of a Welsh background. And so I began my chase, my new hobby, and all the delights and frustrations it was to bring to me. Being tied to an office job and caring for an ageing relative, all my searching had to be done by correspondence at long distance. My home was in London and travelling to Cardigan was out of the question. I had mastered the preliminary stages of the hunt certificates from Somerset House, studying the census records at the Public Records Office, visiting the Genealogical Society's premises in S. Kensington, delving into appropriate books at the British Museum's Reading Room, and the deeper I got the keener my taste became. At last I scored a bull's eye when someone sent me a translation of a Welsh Elegy written on the death of my eighteenth century great-great- great-great grandfather, Thomas Makeig of Penlan, born in 1721, whose early death in 1766 had caused mourning like a shroud and tears at Llandygwydd Now I had a place name, a home parish, where there might be found part of the beginning, and so I later discovered, for in the pages of the ancient Parish Register of the church of St. Tegwydd's, in the parish of Llandygwydd in the county of Cardigan, the name of Makeig stood out like a beacon amid the plethora of Joneses, Evanses, Griffiths, Jenkinses. The family seemed well established in the locality, for the ancient vellum pages revealed- by courtesy of the then Vicar-many births, marriages and deaths, and even the skeleton in the cupboard-a bastard daughter, but honourably acknowledged by her father as his own. Soon I had more place names, for the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth pro- duced photostats of Thomas's will, and even one for his father, Thomas the Elder, who had died two years before his son. Both described themselves as yeomen and mercers, Thomas II of Penlan being a man of some considerable substance with property, leases and money to leave. There was Penlan, there was Panterlis, a lease of Cardigan Island, and legacies amounting to some £ 650, quite apart from all personal assets and estate. Thomas the Elder's will gave the place names of Little Scotland and Parctwad, the former being the Place I then did and now do live in and enjoy. Later research led one to the conclusion that this was an oblique reference to his background in Scotland, and its possible resemblance to the Teify valley, where he