Preface
We have long had an interest in surnames and, because of our own ancestry, in the surnames of Wales in particular. We have been involved in transcribing and indexing documents over a long period and became aware at an early stage of the local characteristics of Welsh surnames, often ignored in general works on surnames. In time we began to realise that the information we had collected was not only of interest to us but could also be of interest and value to many family historians with Welsh ancestry. Out of that realisation has come this book.

Chapter 1
Introduction

No one who has had any significant involvement with family history research can fail to have become involved with some consideration of the subject of surnames. They are, after all, the main indicators which we all use when attempting to identify a family or an individual within the records relating to the population as a whole. In an English context a particular surname could well be a unique identifier of a family within a given community and it would not be uncommon for a present-day researcher to have all sixteen great-great grandparents with different surnames. The same is unlikely in a Welsh context where, other than with recent immigrants, there is a strong likelihood of one or more of the common surnames occurring several times at this level.