Hello Dave Pike, Any canals are ok, but that apart, those in England do get more interest than any others. For the death (not burial) of Thomas Llewelyn, have you checked the GRO index for name variations and mis-spellings. What about Llewelyn Thomas ? Don't forget the way letters were formed then can be quite different now - S for L or T etc. If your family tradition is correct, you would normally find mentions of contractor, boat owner, owner boatman etc in baptism registers, birth/marraige certificates, census returns etc. If you keep finding boat loader, boat steerer, boatman etc then the tradition may be doubtful. If he was in business owning boats then you should most certainly find him in gauging registers. You wont find these in any central location but you may find some in a local history centre in a town through which the canals passed. I'm afraid my geographical knowledge of S. Wales is appalling. There are definately some gauging registers held at Gloucestershire Boat Museum. The archivist there is most helpful. Put Boat Museum in your search engine and you will find an address. If you get stuck come back. In fact don't go away. Phil in Hales Owen -----Original Message----- >There being no equivalent list covering Welsh waterways, I thought I'd try my luck on this English canal list. > >My father's mother's family were all canalboatmen on the Glamorganshire canal. Our family home from 1916 up to very recently, in fact, backed onto the canal at Coedpenmaen, Pontypridd. Sadly, most of the canal now lies buried beneath the A470 Cardiff to Merthyr dual carriage way, though there is still a short stretch in water near Castell Coch, at Tongwynlais, just on the northern edge of Cardiff. > >Information from censuses informs me that my great great grandfather was a boatman: > >Thomas Llewelyn was b. Llanwonno circa 1796; d. between 1851 & 1861 (no sign of a burial or a GRO index entry, and no death entry traced at the local RO - Merthyr Tydfil). Thomas was working as a boatman as early as 1822 when his first child was born. At this time the family lived in Merthyr Tydfil. By 1841 they were living at Navigation, Abercynon. By 1851 they were at Furnace Row, Pontyrhun, Abercanaid - a row of canalboatmen'scottages which still exists today. > >Of Thomas's sons, at least 5 worked on the canal between about 1840 and at least 1880: David, Thomas, John, William (my great grandfather) and Rhys, though I know little about any of them other than my direct ancestor William, who later lived in Pontypridd, where he was an ostler on the canal for a while before finishing his working days as an ostler in the ill-fated Albion colliery at Cilfynydd, near Ponty. He died in 1917. > >Family tradition has it that the family owned its own canalboat(s). How can I go about verifying this or finding out anything else about their business? > >Many thanks > >David Pike