Family tradition says Mary Elizabeth WILLIAMS, my 2nd great-grandmother, was from Betws-y-Coed, Wales. She allegedly had an only sibling named Philip who was taken by the English and sent to India as part of the medical corps after they became orphans. She does not show up in the 1841 census or the local church records Betws-Y-Coed as far as I have I can tell. My research didn't seem to have any Williams families that had only two children. It maybe that she was near but not in Betws-y-Coed. I know that she came to the US but I can't find her on a passenger list. In 1850 she was living with Dr. & Mrs. Ebenezer Woodward in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was not listed as a servant although there was a boy listed as a laborer who was listed with the house. My great-aunt always said that the Woodward's paid for her wedding. I do have a picture of her with her husband William John Thomas where she is wearing a fancy dress that I would guess was either silk or satin in the ! 1850's time period. Her husband came from Oneida County, NY but I found him a few blocks away in the 1850 census as a quarry worker. She spoke Welsh and used it so others on her partyline could understand what she was saying. The other story my great aunt told was that the Owen Owens family who also came from Betws-y-Coed could give us some information. I have seen work done on that family but they could not spell Betws-y-Coed and the early information is very sketchy with no mention on my family. Part of my problem is that I am not certain if Mary's father was a Williams or if his first name was William. I have not firm birth date but her tombstone says she was 54 when she died January 12, 1883 in Waushara County, Wisconsin. She is as bad as my Irish lines about avoiding records. I have a letter from a brother-in-law when her husband died in 1901 that says he could remember them coming to NY on their way to Wisconsin after they got married in the fall of 1851 in Quincy, Mass. I have searched a wide range of years and can't find a marriage record. Once they got to the Town of Rose in Waushara County, there is no obituary or death record. Family tradition says she died of a ruptured appendix. It also says that she received a letter telling her that her brother had died so he should have died before 1883. There was a Welsh Church ( Soar) near them in the Town of Rose but naturally those records are lost and the church disbanded about 1900. Pam from Madison, Wisconsin

Hello Pam My name is Trevor Evans and my father was a stonecutter from Red Granite Wisconsin ,where I grew up. I knew everyone in Red Granite during the years I was in school there, graduated High School in 1939. We often visited Welsh families in Wild Rose during those years. There were no quarries around Wild Rose those Welsh people were farmers. I am planning on attending a class reunion around Labor Day Sept. 1st. I will be visiting the cemeteries where my relatives are interred and if you believe that there is anything I can do to help locate your family members please advise and give me all the information you have concerning those people. My father cut the stone for many of the dormitories in Madison (U. Of W.) as well as the stone in the Unitarian Church at the end of Lake Mendota, Frank Lloyd Wrights church (another Welshman). There was quite a strong Welsh settlement around Wild Rose and in Red Granite most of the Welsh stonecutters from Trefor N. Wales. Best Trevor -- Trefor ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pam Anderson" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 10:49 PM Subject: [CAE] MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS, orphan from Betws-y-Coed ? > Family tradition says Mary Elizabeth WILLIAMS, my 2nd great-grandmother, was from Betws-y-Coed, Wales. She allegedly had an only sibling named Philip who was taken by the English and sent to India as part of the medical corps after they became orphans. She does not show up in the 1841 census or the local church records Betws-Y-Coed as far as I have I can tell. My research didn't seem to have any Williams families that had only two children. It maybe that she was near but not in Betws-y-Coed. I know that she came to the US but I can't find her on a passenger list. In 1850 she was living with Dr. & Mrs. Ebenezer Woodward in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was not listed as a servant although there was a boy listed as a laborer who was listed with the house. My great-aunt always said that the Woodward's paid for her wedding. I do have a picture of her with her husband William John Thomas where she is wearing a fancy dress that I would guess was either silk or satin in the ! > 1850's time period. Her husband came from Oneida County, NY but I found him a few blocks away in the 1850 census as a quarry worker. She spoke Welsh and used it so others on her partyline could understand what she was saying. The other story my great aunt told was that the Owen Owens family who also came from Betws-y-Coed could give us some information. I have seen work done on that family but they could not spell Betws-y-Coed and the early information is very sketchy with no mention on my family. Part of my problem is that I am not certain if Mary's father was a Williams or if his first name was William. > > > > I have not firm birth date but her tombstone says she was 54 when she died January 12, 1883 in Waushara County, Wisconsin. She is as bad as my Irish lines about avoiding records. I have a letter from a brother-in-law when her husband died in 1901 that says he could remember them coming to NY on their way to Wisconsin after they got married in the fall of 1851 in Quincy, Mass. I have searched a wide range of years and can't find a marriage record. Once they got to the Town of Rose in Waushara County, there is no obituary or death record. Family tradition says she died of a ruptured appendix. It also says that she received a letter telling her that her brother had died so he should have died before 1883. There was a Welsh Church ( Soar) near them in the Town of Rose but naturally those records are lost and the church disbanded about 1900. > > > > Pam from Madison, Wisconsin > > > > > > > > > > > > > ==== WLS-CAERNARFONSHIRE Mailing List ==== > http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/inst/uwbangor.shtml > Bangor University Archives > > ============================== > Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration > Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237 > >

I appreciate your offer to help on my Williams problem. I was in Wild Rose yesterday guiding at the Wild Rose Museum. Even though I live in Madison, I was drafted to be President of the Wild Rose Historical Society. Besides guiding, I have been trying to make our archives more accessible by doing indexes and table of contents for documents, pictures or old news articles. You can go to www.1wildrose.com to get see information on the museum. Clip on attractions and then Pioneer Museum. If you would like to see the museum, I am willing to be there to show you through. We have many pictures of the Welsh settlers & some of their relatives from outside the immediate area. The reason they drafted me is because I have been working on a genealogical history of Wild Rose ( including the Towns of Mt. Morris, Rose, Springwater and part of the Town of Wautoma in Waushara Co. and part of Dayton in Waupaca Co., and part of Belmont in Portage Co. I have 38 stackable file drawers with information for old newspapers that I have read on microfilm, copied then clipped, dated, and sorted by family or subject. I am behind on my sorting and filing by at least two (10 ream size) boxes. I have photographed most of the cemeteries in the area of my research. I have some that I need to go back and take a trowel along so I can get the dates that are either under ground or too close to the ground for me to photograph. I know that my Pritchard side of the Thomas family absolutely came from Aberdaron from the Ty Howel farm. I believe the Thomas side also came from Aberdaron but I can't find the farm in the census. The farm means polluted water and is Pwll Llwrgr (the second part might be the wrong spelling). I think the literal translation is more like pond corrupted. I have found people buried in the Aberdaron cemetery with the farm name on the tombstone. The family came over in the 1818-19 time period. I do have an obituary in Welsh for Jane Pritchard which I mostly translated and then sent to a lady in Anglesey who has relatives that came to Wild Rose. If you run into anyone who knows about the Soar Church records that would be the greatest help because I don't have a birthdate for Mary Elizabeth. I should also say that my mother graduated a year earlier than you did but of course from Wild Rose. She was active in the band so she went to many of the tournaments they had in those days. In those days she was Beverly Murty. Thanks again for your offer of help. Pam Anderson