Research results this past year have been successful beyond by wildest dreams. At our last meeting in 1990, I reported that we had determined our (end of the line) ancestor, Richard Owen had two wives, rather than the one we had supposed. (1) Mary Thomas of Cemmaes was the mother of the first 5 children, the youngest of whom was the "Uncle John" mentioned in W.T.'s diary. Mary Thomas died in 1793. In 1795, Richard married (2) Mary Edwards, his widowed 3rd cousin. She had gone to Tregynon where she had been married to Evan Lewis for 8 years. No children of this marriage have been found. Returning to her home parish 4 years after her first husband's death, she married Richard and they had two sons; Richard, and our ancestor, Edward Owen.  

    At this point in our family history, the surname was Owen. The possessive "s" was apparently first used by Edward's children.

    We have now traced Richard's ancestry back 6 generations in the Llanbrynmair area. His father, Thomas John Owen appears in the records to have been a very strong, influential character and the one who adopted the use of Owen as a surname. Prior to Thomas John Owen, the patronymic name system was used by our family, with each male using his own given name plus the given name of his father. Girls could choose to go by either their father's or paternal grandfather's given names. Thomas John Owen chose to go by all three. His father was John (son of) Owen; his grandfather was Owen (son of) Evan (son of) Robert (son of) Wynn. This takes our paternal line (that top line on the pedigree chart) back to 1562 A.D. - the beginning of the parish registers.

    Thomas John Owen married very well to a girl from a socially prominent, wealthy family. Her name was Gwen Jones. Her eldest sister married into the local nobility. Her father and grandfather left wills and land records showing that the family owned an estate named "Esgair Evan" where they raised horses and sheep along with following other agricultural pursuits.

    Thomas John Owen Held two farms east of the town of Llanbrynmair, called "Tymaur" (Big House) and "Luest Donaled" (Aled's Camp). These were inherited by his two eldest sons following his death in 1788. Tymaur is historically important in the area because this was the meeting place for the independent non-conformists prior to the time they were able to build their own chapel.

    Mary Edward's ancestry has also been traced back five more generations this past year. We still have some work to do on various wives' lines; but generally speaking, this ancestral line is also back to the beginning of the parish registers. Probate, land and court records may turn up more information. However, these will require incredible amounts of time compared to our present parish register searches.

    One item of interest I did locate in a grand jury record: Richard Owen and Mary Edward's common ancestor - a yeoman from nearby Carno named Thomas Cadwalader ab Morgan - was fined 2 shillings for not attending church in the past month. Queen Elizabeth I had passed a law requiring regular church attendance. Shortly after this incident, Thomas married and appears to have been an exemplary church-attender from that time on.

   -since the reunion -

    In the past several months we have turned our research efforts toward finding our ancestress Sarah (wife of Edward Owen) Roberts' progenitors. An earlier research attempt had located her in the parish of Llansannon, Denbighshire. Close examination of these records showed that the Sarah Roberts previously thought to be our ancestress was rather an old maid who never left the farm and was living with her mother when the 1851 census was taken.

    A copy of our Sarah's death certificate was ordered from Somerset House in England and it showed that our Sarah died at age 47 in her home on Transhbach Street, Merthyr Tydfil with her husband, Edward, in attendance... in 1850. Sarah and Edward's marriage certificate has also been obtained and has been most useful as it showed the witnesses at their marriage were Martha Roberts and Richard Roberts, her younger sister and brother. The baptism records of all three have now been located in the Old Chapel Independent Church parish registers - back in Llanbrynmair; the same church Edward and his family attended before the younger generation moved to Merthyr Tydfil to work in the mines. So at this point in our research, we appear to be making great strides once more.

    At the family reunion, I recommended that we continue research on Sarah's line, then continue on W.T. Owens' maternal grandparent lines. When these have been traced to the extent of available parish and probate records, we should do the some for each of W.T.'s wives' ancestries.

    Thank you for your financial support of our family project. Incoming research reports promise some exciting new information at our next family reunion.

Sincerely,

Varla Owens Wright