Welsh Patronymics- Background

Administrators

Surnames

Adams, Alexander, Andrews, Bevan, Bowen, Charles, Davies, Davis, Dennis, Dix, Edmunds, Edwards, Elkins, Ellis, Evans, George, Gough, Griffiths, Hanks, Harris, Hayes, Henry, Hopkins, Howell, Hughes, James, Jeffries, Jenkins, Johns, Jones, Lewis, Llewelyn, Lloyd, Matthews, Meredith, Morgan, Morris, Nichols, Owen, Parry, Peters, Phillips, Powell, Price, Pritchard, Probert, Pugh, Richards, Roberts, Rogers, Simmons, Thomas, Vaughan, Watkins, Wilkins, Wilks, Williams, Wynne

Background

The Welsh Patronymics project was officially begun on December 6, 2002. The project was designed for the patronymic style surnames (Williams, Jones, and Roberts, just to name a few) which are found in Wales. The reason for this is that the patronymic surname system persisted in Wales much longer than in many other parts of Europe, as recently as 1813 in some areas. What that means is that the son of a man named Robert Williams might have been called Hugh Robert or Hugh Roberts, so did not have Williams as his surname.

Welsh patronymic surnames take on three forms:

1. A masculine name as it is (particularly common for masculine names ending in “s”, though not always that way). Examples: James, Thomas, Lewis, George, Owen, Griffith, Morgan.

2. A masculine name followed by a possessive “s.” Examples: Williams, Jones, Evans, Edwards, Matthews, Roberts, Hughes, Harris (son of Harry), Davies or Davis (son of David/Dafydd).

3. A masculine name beginning with the prefix “ap” or “ab” (the “a” is usually dropped in the modern form). Examples: Powell (ap Howell), Pritchard (ap Richard), Price (ap Rhys), Bowen (ab Owen), Bevan (ab Evan), Pugh (ap Hugh).

Project Stats

Statistic Type Count
Combined GEDCOMs Uploaded 71
Distinct mtDNA Haplogroups 98
Distinct Y-DNA Confirmed Haplogroups 35
Distinct Y-DNA Predicted Haplogroups 14
Family Finder 140
Genographic 2.0 Transfers 14
Maternal Ancestor Information 316
mtDNA 221
mtDNA Full Sequence 88
mtDNA Plus 161
mtDNA Subgroups 13
Paternal Ancestor Information 419
Predicted Y-DNA Haplogroups 164
Total Members 513
Unpredicted Y-DNA Haplogroups 5
Unreturned Kits 13
WTY 4
Y-DNA Deep Clade (After 2008) 85
Y-DNA Deep Clade (Prior to 2008) 52
Y-DNA Subgroups 71
Y-DNA111 63
Y-DNA12 423
Y-DNA25 367
Y-DNA37 339
Y-DNA67 221