Another special page for Bowles, Jones & Griffith(s) Descendents:

Robyn writes: It's been lovely being in Wales, and I've been told that as I have Welsh ancestors, I can consider myself Welsh! Pembrokeshire is a really beautiful area and it's been wonderful to see where my ancestors came from. Thanks to Meg in Canada (a descendent of Martha, James Jones's sister) for names, dates and places I've been able to chase up. Unfortunately the Jeffreston records are very badly damaged in places and totally illegible in many parts. They're also out of chronological order but I spent several hours going through them to the best of my ability and was able to find out quite a bit.
Mary Griffith(s) was born in Jeffreyston (she gives this information herself on one of the census documents) and a big search of their records shows there is only one Mary Griffith born in that time frame, so I think we can safely say that she is definitely the daughter of John and Martha Griffith, baptised at Jeffreyston on 26th Feb, 1799. The records for those few decades are fairly good, so hopefully here I now have the whole family:

Baptised at Jeffreyston - children of John and Martha Griffith


1795 Dec 12 - John (NB in Oct 1797 a John Griffith was buried, but it didn't say "a child" so I'm guessing it wasn't him - they generally seemed to always write if it was a child.)

1799 Feb 26 - Mary

1800 Jan 7 - Thomas

1802 Jan 7 - Thomas (this one is a puzzle - I checked them both carefully. When a baby or child died, the next was often named for them, but it's a real coincidence to have Thomas 2 born two years to the day after poor little Thomas 1...no record of any burial either)

1805 Jan 13 - Elizabeth

1808 Oct 10 - Hannah

 John

 Mary

 Thomas 1

 Thomas 2

 Elizabeth

Hannah

Jeffreyston at that stage was full of Griffiths; as well as John and Martha with their young family, there were several others who were married and having babies around the same time. Most of them were married in Jeffreyston, though John and Martha weren't. During the late 1700s to 1812, the other Griffiths having children were:

Thomas & Elizabeth

Alexander & Ann (Browne) married 1785

Joseph & Mary (Moy) m 1789

William & Elizabeth (Pritchard) m 1789

Thomas & Mary (Hughs) m 1789

Daniel & Elizabeth (Thomas) m 1769.

I wasn't able to find out if these Griffiths boys were brothers, cousins or not related at all, but it seems reasonable to suppose that some of them may have been brothers. One thing I did notice was that all of the boys who got married could sign their own names, so presumably had some level of literacy.
So, where were John and Martha married?
Meg gave me all of the recorded possible marriages between a John Griffiths and a Martha in Pembrokeshire. As marriages usually took place in the bride's parish, it seems reasonable to assume that 'our' Martha is one of these. These are the three which took place before their first recorded child we know about, John Junior's birth in 1795:

John Griffiths m Martha Phillip 1789 in Llandewi Velfry. I'm guessing this is not ours, as this John was illiterate, and there don't seem to be any children until John in 1795. Six years is not impossible before having a first baby but it's not really likely in those days.

John Griffiths m Martha Davies 1790 in Begelly. They had one child I could find a record for; John born Dec 1790 (I checked the burials and there was no record of a burial of any John Griffiths here ). Also, this John can't sign his name.

John Griffiths m Martha Palmer 1790 in Carew. They had two children, George (July 27 1792) and William (March 30 1794). I couldn't see any more children for them in the Carew records, as the writing became illegible.

Soooo, if we wipe the illiterate John with no children for six years in Llandewi Velfrey, it still could be either the Begelly or Carew couple, as either of them could have moved back to Jeffreyston and continued their families there. Both of these villages are within a few miles of Jeffreyston so either is reasonable. It would have been great to find a record of at least one of them having more children there and be able to rule them out, but that didn't work. I don't know if there are any other resources we can use to take this further? It seems to me that the Carew couple are the most likely, as the Begelly Griffiths already had a John and John senior couldn't sign his name. Not conclusive I know, but most likely at this point in time?

George & Martha Jones

George Jones, the son of Lewis & Margaret was born at Pwllchrochan on 18th September 1769. (This is the most likely George Jones. An objection might be that the name Lewis doesn't come up later in the family and they did reuse family names a lot.)

George Jones and Martha Thomas were married at St Michael's, Pembroke on Oct 1 1793.

They had 2 children I could find records for (I searched up until 1824):

1799 Feb 27 Mary

1803 Aug 10 William

William Jones married Mary Griffiths (by then of St Mary, Pembroke) at Pembroke St Michael on 11th March, 1823. One possible objection to this being our Mary is the spelling of GriffithS  for both her and her father / brother John who witnessed the marriage. Does this mean it's not our Mary at all, but another one, or maybe they changed the name / spelling? An annoying discrepancy...if it is ours and it's her father, then it means that John Griffith COULD sign his own name and he must have been the Carew wedding. Though I don't think the signatures look the same. I don't have my family records with me to double check on the census records whether Mary has given the name Griffith or Griffiths (though often a census taker would just write down what he thought he heard and how he thought it was spelt.)

In the Jeffreyston records, there are many earlier Griffith families back into the 1700s, including this whole page of one Griffith family. Difficult to read, but it's a full family list. And who knows, it may be ours!