Hay view from Castle

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

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Chapel House, Likely Vaughan Home in Llanfoist

Thanks to Twitter at: Archives Wales retweeted
New tithe maps website
I just did the coolest thing!

The Welsh National Archives are asking for our help to index and orient the tithe maps of Wales from the 1840s! I was able to locate several data points that matched a modern Ordnance Survey map with the 1843 Tithe map for Llanfoist, Monmouthshire! (By the way, I also learned that Welsh spelling for Llanfoist is Llanffwyst. It makes a difference.) You can see my work here. Click on "visualize" and you will see the overlay based on my data points.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

A Probable (and Positive) Elinor Sighting

First, I need to lay out why I am convinced that Elinor Jenkins Vaughan, Jane Vaughan Lewis, and her son John Samuel Lewis ended up in Jacks Valley, Nevada. It was by following at least three of the "Five Jolly Welshman" to the gold and silver fields of the Sierras. John James, appearing to be one of the five, ended up in Genoa near modern-day Carson City, Nevada (back then it was still Utah).

So, naturally I looked at the 1860 Census for the area:


Please note that this is still Utah Territory, but more importantly, the date of the census was supposed to be "as of June 1" (see column no. 3), but this census was not taken until September 28th. This evidences the general governmental disarray in the area as we have previously discussed.

Now, look at the entries for the "Johns" Family:

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Another Beautiful and Possible Grave Site for Elinor


Free use courtesy of Jim Herman - Many thanks!
Elinor Jenkins Vaughan could be here! We know that her daughter died and was buried in Jacks Valley - also in an unmarked grave. It is very likely that Elinor was too. The earliest grave identified in this beautiful cemetery is from 1860. There is plenty of space and apparent mounds for lost grave sites.