Annie Lloyd <Cardi2@aol.com> wrote: I'm very doubtful that Cerman is Cellan as I do research there and I have never seen it spelled that way. I'm more apt to think that it is Cenarth or possibly Cemais Hundred in PEM which isn't far from Penboyr. The county boundaries in that area are very tricky. ==================== Dear Annie, The suggestion is not that Cellan was misspelt as Cernan in the census but that whoever looked up or transcribed the original entry had misread the census enumerator's handwriting. Presumably the culprit had little or no knowledge of the area or of the orthography of Welsh place-names. I agree that a handwritten Cemais could possibly be misread as Cernan, but Cemais is in Pembrokeshire, not Cardiganshire, and surely it would be very unusual for someone to quote the name of a hundred as his/her birthplace. In my view, the solution to the problem lies in revisiting and re-examining the image of the original census entry. Incidentally, the county and parish boundaries in the area are very clearly defined on the electronic maps on the CDs accompanying Kain and Oliver (2001). Source: KAIN, Roger J. P., and OLIVER, Richard R. (2001) "Historic Parishes of England & Wales", History Data Service, University of Essex, Colchester. ISBN 0-9540032-0-9 Kind regards, John ---------------------------- John Ball, Ystalyfera, South Wales, UK E-mail: wfha@clara.co.uk Homepage: http://home.clara.net/wfha/ Welsh Family History Archive: http://home.clara.net/wfha/wales/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 19/08/2003