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- source: Family History Library Catalog
Bodorgan
Bodowen
Cerrigarthur
Llanfeirian
Trefriw
Tregornor
Tynllwydan
Llangadwaladr is a small village in southwest Anglesey, Wales, located around 2 miles east of Aberffraw and 3 miles south of Gwalchmai. It is part of the community of Bodorgan. Bodorgan was previously a township within Llangadwaladr, but probably because it had the railway station it was chosen as the name for the community. Communities came into being after 1974.
The village is a short distance from the ancient llys (English: royal court) of the kings of Gwynedd, and is reputed to have been their royal burial ground. The inscription on one monumental stone in the church (pictured) reads "Catamanus rex sapientisimus opinatisimus omnium regum" (English: King Cadfan, most wise and renowned of all kings), suggesting that Cadfan ap Iago (c. 569 – c. 625) King of Gwynedd, is buried there. One of the windows of St Cadwaladr's church dates from the 12th century.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Llangadwaladr from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "LLANGADWALADR, or EGLWYSAEL, a parish, with a village, in the [registration] district and county of Anglesey; ¾ of a mile SW of Bodorgan [railway] station, and 2½ ENE of Aberffraw. Post town: Aberffraw, under Bangor. Acres: 4,718; of which 1,230 are water. Real property: £2,017. Population: 526. Houses: 119. The property is much subdivided. Bodowen was formerly a seat of the Owens. Bodorgan is the seat of F. O. Meyrick, Esq.; and was, at one time, famous for remarkably fine gardens. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Bangor. Value: £245. Patron: the Lord Chancellor.
- "The church is dedicated to St. Cadwaladr; occupies the site of one built about 650; is itself early perpendicular English; comprises nave and chancel, with N and S chapels; has a very beautiful three-light, stained-glass window; has also, in the N chapel, a good memorial window to the Meyricks; and includes, on the lintel of the nave's S doorway, an inscribed stone of the 7th century to St. Cadwaladr's grandfather, who is styled "Catamanus Rex sapientissimus opinatissimus omninm regum." There are a village school, and charities £16.
A Vision of Britain through Time also states that Llangadwaladr contained the townships of Bodorgan, Bodowen, and Cerrigarthur, the chapelry of Llanfeirian, and the hamlets of Trefriw, Tregornor, and Tynllwydan. All of these are redirect here.
Research Tips
- A 1900 Ordnance Survey map of the historic county of Anglesey 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.
- 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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