- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Rudbaxton is a parish and a local government community in the county of Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is 81 miles (130 km) from Cardiff and 208 miles (330 km) from London. The community includes the village of Crundale and the hamlets of Poyston Cross, Bethlehem and Rudbaxton Water. It also had a township by the name of Cilbarth.
In 2011 the population of Rudbaxton was 749 with 18.2% of them able to speak Welsh. In 2015 the population was estimated at 850.
The parish church of St Michael was originally established in the early 13th century and is Grade I listed. It is built of rubble stone with slate roofing, and retains some late-15th or early-16th century features. It was restored "from a state of ruin" by the rector in the 19th century.
History
Rudbaxton parish was in the hundred of Dungleddy, a corruption of the Welsh for "two Cleddau", referring to the Eastern and Western Cleddau rivers, which form part of the parish boundary. The Haverfordwest to Fishguard turnpike (now the A40 road) ran through the western half of the parish.
By 1708 efforts were being made by a "neighbouring Gentleman" to clothe and educate the poor children of the parish. A school was established by the SPCK and the philanthropist Sir John Philipps (1666-1737). In 1833 the population of the parish was 621, and the school educated 11 pupils, partly funded by the Baptist movement. A National School was established in 1877 and the school's minutes and correspondence papers from 1877 to 1966 are held at Pembrokeshire Record Office.
In 1831 about 75% of males over 20 years were occupied in agriculture. The population in 1870 was 586, occupying 130 houses. The population had expanded from 472 in 1801 to 669 in 1851, and then fell to 405 by 1961.
In 1942 a large area of the parish was taken over to build RAF Haverfordwest, later becoming Withybush Airport.
General Sir Thomas Picton (1758-1815) was born in the parish, at Poyston Hall, in 1758. He died at the Battle of Waterloo.
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 Haverfordwest Rural District page there is a sketchmap indicating the civil parishes of Haverfordwest Rural District as of 1935.
- 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.
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