Hay view from Castle

Hay view from Castle
Hay-on-Wye, Powys (formerly Breconshire), Wales. The "Town of Books" (and Vaughans!)

Friday, June 20, 2014

Rees Price is [Still] Right!

We're ready to call it. Rees Price, tailor of Glasbury, is the father of John the B born 1789. We have broken through the brick wall of illegitimate birth.

[Even thought we heard back from our researcher in Wales that the 5th piece is inoperable as a strange coincidence of names (it was a different village, different mother, and apparently a different "Rees Price"), we still think the first four are enough. We'll keep looking, but we may never find anything more solid.]

It's still only a circumstantial case, but all the pieces fit. Here are the parts. You can tell me if you think we got it wrong.
1.  6 March 1789, John, bastard son of Hannah Vaughan, christened in Hay, Breconshire.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Bastardy In Britain

It was tempting to title this "British Bastards," which, as a son of the American Revolution could have its relevance. And as this is principally about my Welsh Ancestry, it could also be "Saxon Bastards" as an attention generator expressing the millennial frustrations of my Cymraeg heritage.

The real purpose, however, is to explain what I have learned about the laws pertaining to illegitimate children in England and Wales because of the circumstances of our paternal surname beginning with John Vaughan, bastard child of Hannah Vaughan, christened 6 March 1789 in Hay, Breconshire, Wales. We could also use my cousins' endearing name for him, "John the B." (Well, he also was a butcher.)