WEST FROM WALES

Purpose of this Book

This book is intended primarily to enhance the knowledge of the descendants of two particular Welsh families about those families. These descendants are now in both Wales and in the United States, where they are scattered over much of the country. Others may also find things of interest, particularly if they are of Welsh descent.

Value of Family History, and History

There is inherent interest and value in knowing the history of your family. The thoughts about this value of L. C. Morgan, my great uncle whose father immigrated from Wales and who spent many years studying the family history, are shown on the previous page. Richard Llewellen, who wrote the novel How Green Was My Valley about a family in Glamorgan in South Wales, included a vision experienced by his protagonist, Hugh Morgan (a fictional character, no relation), also shown on the previous page.

There is interest and value in knowing some history of the world and your place in it, as well. In fact, you cannot fully understand your family’s history if you do not know about the historical setting of their lives, and you can’t fully appreciate the history of a country or an area unless you have some acquaintance with the people who lived there. In this book I have tried to combine information about the families who came to America from Wales with information about their surroundings in both countries.

Structure

Throughout most of this book, the right-hand pages have a more-or-less continuous narrative of family and other history, while the left-hand pages have pictures, tables, and assorted quotations that do not have to be read in order to keep up with the story. The last two parts of the book are compilations of descendents of two families in South Wales. One family is that of William and Sarah Morgan of Llanedy Parish, Carmarthenshire. The other family is that of William and Mary Rees of Meline Parish, Pembrokeshire. Some of the descendents of both couples stayed in Wales, while others came to the American Midwest, and scattered out from there.

Acknowledgments and Sources

This history was inspired by a booklet on the descendents of William and Sarah Morgan, prepared by Lewis Caleb (L. C.) Morgan in 1953. Parts of that history are quoted in this work. L. C. Morgan noted in his booklet that he was indebted to Miss Florence Ann Isabel Thomas, Llangennech, Wales, and her half cousin, Mr. Gordon L. Harris, Royal Oak, Maryland, for some of the data on the generations previous to the Lewis Morgan family. I am further indebted to my uncle Dr. Roland Reese Morgan, who preserved the materials collected by his uncle L. C. Morgan, and loaned them to me for study.

In addition to the materials mentioned above, I was able to obtain much information from census and immigration records at the National Archives and from local histories and other materials at the Library of Congress and the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution. All three of these institutions are in Washington, DC. I also used parish records and transcripts preserved on microfilm by the Morman Church (LDS), and made available through the Tallahassee Morman Church’s Family History Center.

Finally, several other people who are descended from one or more of these Welsh families provided additional details.

Corrections and Additions

Errors are always possible in the spelling of names, the recording of dates, and the locations of events. If you find errors, or know of new data, please send me the information so that I can improve future editions of this work. History never ends!

In order to keep the genealogy listing in Part IV manageable, I have assumed a cutoff after the fourth generation in America. A future edition, or separate volume, may continue the genealogy for the descendants of at least some of the nine American Morgans.