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| Such a beautiful day! But it was also very cold - a least to us - so we were bundled up while we sat on a bench over looking the bay and ate our dinner. It was chilly enough that I pulled up my hood to protect me from the wind. We had arrived early for a meeting so I walked over to the Tesco store and bought some sandwiches. [Note our Tesco bag with the dragon which we bought for 10 pence] We eat a LOT of sandwiches here. |
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| A lovely beach with a few hearty souls in shirt sleeves and some in shorts. But it felt REALLY cold to us. |
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| Usually we see only the Welsh flag as we go from place to place. So it was unusual to also see the Union Jack. I kept hoping for a good wind to unfurl both the flags but was disappointed. It seemed all the wind was on the beach just a few yards away. |
On our first Sunday when we attended the wonderful Easter Program at the Cardiff Stake Centre we saw this LAPD patrol car manned by one of our Pontypridd ward members. Just a fun thing to see.
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| This fellow is pretty proud of his LAPD cruiser. He rents it out for special occasions like proms and birthdays etc. and is allowed to use the red flashing lights because over here the emergency vehicles have blue flashing lights. |
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| This is one of the lovely families we have met in our Pontypridd ward. |
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| Candid shot with Gretta and David on the bridge over the moat. |
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| I thought Steve got a great perspective of the castle. It looks sort of bleak now but I wonder what it was like back in the day? |
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| And this one too. I am so glad there is an effort to preserve this amazing building. Can you even imagine living here with only a fireplace for heat? Brrr! |
We have worked very hard in the prior weeks at the Glamorgan Archive and a couple of days in Aberystwyth at the National Archives. We sort of came to a temporary end for the Bowen and Edmond families. We will return to Aberystwyth at a later time to continue looking at the estate records in the 1600's and hopefully earlier that may tell us more about these two families. They both lived on the Manor of Colwinston as tenants so the records of them are sketchy but we have been able to isolate 65 documents for the Bowen family back to 1700 with a few less for the Edmond family.
Many people have worked on this line and much has been recorded on FamilySearch but we have found many mistakes. The only way to make sure we get it right is to find anything and everything we can to make sure we find the 'correct' people. For example, you would be amazed at how many men with the name "David Bowen" lived in Glamorgan in the 1700's. Someone made a marriage connection between our David Bowen who lived as a tenant in Colwinston and a David Bowen who was married in 1705 in Carmarthan which is over 51 miles away. It is highly unlikely that these two David Bowens are the same person. But it is a huge job to prove they are not the same person. What we have learned though is that our David Bowen was actually David ap/ab Owen and that the name morphed to David Bowen sometimes during the period of 1700-1711 in the Colwinston parish where he lived as a tenant on the Manor of Colwinston. It may be necessary to also research the David Bowen of Carmarthan to find enough evidence to prove they are not the same person.
The same is true of the Edmond family. While we find Thomas Edmond living as a tenant on the Manor of Colwinston we find a birth date on FamilySearch for the same Thomas Edmond in England. It is not impossible that our Thomas Edmond was born in England but again it is highly unlikely that he would have migrated from England just to be a tenant in Colwinston in the 1600's. We found him in the Hearth Tax of 1670 as having only one hearth to be taxed so he was not a man of means. It will take a lot of research to make sure we get the CORRECT Thomas Edmond. And even though I loved that beautiful church we found last week in Llantrythyd that showed a memorial to the Edmond family it may not be our Edmond family. Apparently Edmond was a pretty common name and many of them were in England.
Some days is seems hard to know where to search to find the correct information. I would love to have found more on those lines and to have been able to work past this wall we are at but I have to realize that it may take many weeks to sort it all out. Thankfully we have time.
This coming week we will move on to the Neath and West Glamorgan Archives in an attempt to learn more of the actual Jenkin line. We were blessed to find a will dated 1738 just a few weeks before we left on this research trip. The will was for an Evan Jenkin who it turns out was Steve's 7 times great uncle. He was a bachelor and a tailor and left everything to his nieces and nephews numbering over 26 persons. In his will we were able to learn that patronymics was happening in the Neath area during that time. This will proved our suspicions that the father of Steve's 4th great grandfather, Evan Jenkin, was Jenkin David and that his father was David Jenkin. It was good to be able to prove the connection as there had been some dispute about patronymics. Now we have to find the birth records for all of the 26 persons to document their lives. I look forward to the opportunity to search the records. We will begin today by going to Neath.
But we were tired and looked forward to a break. So we took a trip to the London Temple. It was interesting and amazing to actually be there after having seen the picture of that temple for many years.
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| We are on the road again with Steve taking photos out of his window. |
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| Signage at the entry of the temple grounds. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - LONDON TEMPLE". It was a longer trip than google maps indicated. But I am very happy to say that we managed to navigate our way safely and without any wrong turns on the roundabouts. |
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| This is the patron accommodation for the temple. We were assigned a lovely big room with an ensuite bathroom. It had a full kitchen for our use. Had we known that would be available we would have brought food with us. As it was we had to drive out to find some dinner. |
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| The front view of the temple. It is set in a lovely property with many acres of lawn. So beautiful. But then I always find the temples beautiful. |
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| By the temple entrance after our time there the first day. |
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| The view from the entrance, showing a beautiful large farmhouse that came with the property when purchased. |
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| Steve caught me unawares as I strolled on the temple grounds. |
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| My handsome husband! And yes he is wearing his kangaroo tie from Paddy's Market in Sydney Australia. |
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| Temples always have beautiful flowers and this is no exception. |
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| A close-up. I loved these! |
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| A beautiful maple tree at the entrance to the temple grounds. |
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| These pillars intrigued me. The rock work is lovely and the tops are so interesting.. |
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| Even a stump can be beautiful! |
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| After spending a lovely Wednesday afternoon and an equally lovely Thursday morning we headed home. I was surprised at the amount of traffic we encountered on our way to Wales. It was terribly congested near Cardiff and we decided that next time we go to the temple we will plan to leave for home early in the morning to avoid the congestion. |
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| This amazing suspension bridge leads us from England to Wales. |
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| A phone booth - not a familiar sight anymore. |
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| Although they are not easy to drive on, these narrows roadways give us some fantastic views! |
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| Notice the road warning in Welsh and then English. |
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| I just love the green! |
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| Steve had wanted a photo of a police car and here were several. They are easy to spot with their bright colors. |
As we have driven past many fields I have been drawn to the sheep. So when I saw a chance to actually pull safely off the road I did so I could take some photos. As I walked up to the fence to take photos the sheep saw me and began running towards me. They would hesitate but then if I turned away they would keep on running and then they just ran forward. I don't know if they expected to be fed or just what was going on but all of a sudden here they were. They just made me laugh!
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| Here they come! |
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| This one in front kept 'baaing'. |
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| I really wonder what they thought was going on. |
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| Steve caught me again. |
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| This just made me laugh! Each certainly has a distinctive face, and they smell kind of bad. And I think they look more lovely on the fields but this was just great and it made me happy.😎 |
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| A wind farm. There are a lot of these windmills here taking advantage of the winds. |
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| Me again. |
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| And this is the lovely scene I was photographing. |
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| You can see that I actually did find a safe place to pull off. |
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| On our way home. |
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| These scenes of terraced homes are becoming familiar to us. |
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| We drive along here almost every day. |
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| This large white bridge is very close to where we live. |
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| There is a part of me that cannot resist gardening. I bought some pink geraniums and some cherry tomatoes at the market. Then I bought 2 planters and then some compost. Here they are the first day after I planted them [May 18th]. I think they look pretty healthy so far. I will keep you posted.
It is nearly noon here in Pontygwaith and we will soon leave for Neath. But this morning we got our haircut. What a treat to have someone come to us. Steve's wife [our friendly landlord] came and gave us complimentary haircuts.That was just so kind and sweet. The people here in Wales are certainly lovely!
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