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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Llandysul is a small town and community (or civil parish) now in the county of Ceredigion, Wales, but before 1974 in the historic county of Cardiganshire. As a community it consists of the villages of Capel Dewi, Horeb, Pont Sian, Pren-gwyn, Tregroes, Rhydowen and the village of Llandysul itself. At the 2001 UK census the community had a population of 1,484, reducing to 1,439 at the 2011 UK Census. Llandysul lies in the valley of the River Teifi and is visited for its fishing and canoeing. The wider community had a population of 2732, as of 2011.
The Teifi Valley around Llandysul was the home of the Welsh woollen industry. Many sheep were reared locally and there were plenty of fast-flowing streams to power machinery so many woollen mills were established in the area in the 19th century. There was also a flannel shirt factory in the town at that time. The mills had nearly all been closed by the end of the 20th century as cheaper textiles became available from the Far East.
The church of St. Tysul was founded by Tysul, 462 - 554, at the meeting place of a number of tracks at a ford over the River Teifi. The present stone structure dates from the thirteenth century and the roof remained thatched until 1783. The ancient altar with its early Christian inscription was incorporated into the altar of the Lady Chapel. The simple nave is separated from the north and south aisles by plain square pillars. Other ancient carved stones are found in the choir vestry. One of these is the Velvor Stone, a fragment cut from the middle of an inscribed slab.
For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Llandysul.
Research Tips
- A 1900 Ordnance Survey map of the historic county of Cardiganshire 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.
- Ceredigion Archives has a website with a list of their holdings, as well as historical notes on places in Cardiganshire.
- 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.
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