Place:Cilgerran, Pembrokeshire, Wales

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Cilgerran (previously Kilgerran or Cil-Garon) is a (former) parish, community and formerly incorporated market town situated 50 metres (160 ft) above sea level on the southern bank of the River Teifi in north Pembrokeshire, Wales. The town gave its name to the Hundred of Cilgerran and was previously the headquarters of the commote of Emlyn is Cuch.

Nearby are the hamlets of Llwyncelyn, Rhoshill, Cnwce, Pen-y-bryn, Carreg-wen and Pontrhydyceirt, and the villages of Llechryd (in Cardiganshire) and Boncath in the parish of Llanfihangel Penbedw. The community had a population of 1,507 in the UK census of 2011.

Cilgerran Castle, strategically built in 1100 at "Cenarth Bychan", high above the River Teifi, is the castle from which Owain of Powys is said to have abducted Nest, or Helen of Wales, in 1109. Originally in Cantref Emlyn, Cilgerran came under Norman control with the building of the castle, from where the Lordship of Cilgerran was administered. The Welsh under the Lord Rhys (1132-1197) regained control from 1164-5 (the date of the first recording of the name "Cilgerran") to 1223. By 1204 the town was beginning to grow, with 22 taxpayers recorded in 1292.

After 1223 William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke took control, and his heirs ruled until the lordship passed to the crown in the late 15th century. The Hundred of Cilgerran was established in 1536. It was a marcher borough; Owen, Lord of Kemes, described it in 1603 as one of five Pembrokeshire boroughs overseen by a portreeve. Although the town remained small it was considered one of the main market centres in Pembrokeshire in the early 17th century, with mainly Welsh demographics.

The principal occupations throughout Cilgerran's history have been farming, salmon fishing and slate quarrying. Most slate was quarried in the Teifi gorge, and many of the houses in the town were built from this stone. The town was renowned for the quality of the slate that was mined there and exported through the port at Cardigan. The industry peaked in the late 19th century, its continuance until that time supported by the coming of the railway in 1869. The town's market ended in the early 20th century, there was no further quarrying after 1936 and the castle had been allowed to become a ruin since the 16th century (partly as a result of nearby quarrying) so the town reverted to being termed a village, but still retained town status with a town council.

Research Tips

• A 1900 Ordnance Survey map of the historic county of Pembrokeshire is available on the A Vision of Britain through Time website. This shows all the old parishes within their urban and rural districts. Large farms and estates are also marked. On the Cemais Rural District page there is a sketchmap indicating the civil parishes of Cemais Rural District as of 1935. Cemais was a rural district formed in 1934 from the earlier Llanfyrnach and St. Dogmells Rural Districts.
• Pembrokeshire Archives has a website with a list of their holdings, as well as historical notes on places in Pembrokeshire. Its address is Prendergast, Haverfordwest, SA61 2PE; Tel No: 01437 775456 or (+44)1437 775456 (out of UK), E-mail: record.office@pembrokeshire.gov.uk
• GENUKI has a page on each of the old counties of Wales and, under these counties, pages for each of the ecclesiastical parishes within the county. Information is gathered under a number of headings and the amount of information varies from parish to parish. Parish descriptions are based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and thus the emphasis is on ecclesiastical parishes. (Civil parishes were not yet established.) The submitter is very firm about his copyright. This should not stop anyone from reading the material.
• The GENUKI Pembrokeshire pages include, under Description and Travel close to the bottom of the page, a link "parish map" to a map website showing boundaries and settlements before 1850. On the linked page will be maps of several parishes located close to each other.
• GENUKI also provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area, but there is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date for every county.
• FreeBMD provides a link to a list of the civil registration districts for each Welsh county from 1837 to 1996. Civil registration districts changed with varying densities of population and improvements in communication. Most counties and unitary authorities now have only one district. The list helps with providing names for the registration districts listed in the FreeBMD index and also as a guide for where to look for census entries.
• The FamilySearch Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI and these have been prepared at a later date. The Wiki may look like Wikipedia but the information has been provided for family historians. There are tables of links between the parishes in the historic counties of Wales and their post-1996 counterparts. This is the only genealogical website found that provides this information universally; others are not as thorough.
• Some words in Welsh come up time and time again and you may want to know what they mean or how to pronounce them. For example,
  "Eglwys" is a church and the prefix "Llan" is a parish.
  "w" and "y" are used as vowels in Welsh.
  "Ll" is pronounced either "cl" or "hl" or somewhere in between. "dd" sounds like "th".
  The single letter "Y" is "the" and "Yn" means "in".
  "uwch" means "above"; "isod" is "below" or "under";
  "gwch" is "great", "ychydig" is "little";
  "cwm" is a "valley".

In both Welsh and English all these words are commonly used in place names in the UK. Place names are often hyphenated, or two words are combined into one. Entering your problem phrase into Google Search, including the term "meaning in Welsh", will lead you to Google's quick translation guide. I'm no authority; these are just things I have picked up while building up this gazetteer for WeRelate.