#SurnameSaturday Jones

With the 6 nations show down between Wales and England today its time to celebrate my Welsh ancestry! My great grandfather Owen Evan Jones was born in the town of Trefriw in the Conwy valley in North Wales in 1875.

His father Llewelyn Robert Jones had worked in the wood yards and the iron works as well as a lime burner. It must have been a tough life in this part of Wales and Owen left sometime after 1891 as a qualified teacher. His father had disowned him for teaching English which was the only language allowed in the schools so he moved to Lancashire.

This must have been a very strange place to a young man whose family had been in Caernarvonshire and Denbighshire for generations. Luckily he found love in the form of my great grandmother Hannah Honorah Audrey Spencer and started his own family. Here they are enjoying a family trip to the beach:

Despite moving to England he was always proud of his Welsh roots and taught his grandson (my dad) how to pronounce the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (and he can still say it!). It was partly the pull of this Welsh blood that led me to choose Swansea university and loved spending 3 years enjoying the culture and rugby! 

 

This summer I finally got my first visit to Trefriw even though it was very brief. Some of it looked like is must have done when he was there in the 19th century. I wonder if they were church or chapel and which one of these religious buildings they used on a Sunday:

 

Original chapel

Parish church

Methodist church

The current school was built after my great grandfather had left but I wonder if the original school was just this house:

One day I will get back and do more research to find out more about my Jones and Roberts ancestors and my Welsh roots.. Only problem is I may have to learn Welsh to do so and so far I am struggling beyond bore da and nos da…

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