|
Surname Origin: English, Welsh and Cornish, from the popular medieval given name of biblical origin. The biblical name was originally as Aramaic byname meaning “twins”.
At the age of 23 on the 14 May 1798 Mary Evans married Evan Thomas at St. Cynllo, the Parish Church of Llangunllo. Whether George Evans had moved there to live after the death of his wife we have not been able to establish, although there are several Evans’s on the Tithe Apportionments of 1839, including at least one George.
Children of Mary and Evan Thomas Of the children of Evan and Mary, some we have a little information on and others just dates. John baptised in 1798, we believe went on to have at least 7 children and lived in the nearby village of Llandegli. Evan, born 1801, died aged 11, Martha born 1803, died aged 3. Jane came next in 1805, after emigrating to Canada she married a Benjamin Parlour and died at the age of 66 in 1871. Martha was born in 1807 but she also died young at the age of 2. Mary who was born in 1809 married Evan Mantle jnr. (see Chapter One) William Evan came next in 1810, and it was he who went to America (see letter to America and American Family Tree further on). Harriett was born in 1812, is purported to have married firstly a William West by whom she had a daughter Jane, and secondly Thomas Gough by whom she had two sons whilst living in Clun, near to her sister Mary Mantle. But for some reason by 1851 she is back home living with her mother, no husband and no children. James born 1814, is the next of this large family, he also emigrated to America with his brother William, he married a woman called Ann, had one son and died in 1837 in Wood County, Ohio. Charlotte born 1816, married James Webb in 1834, and first lived in the cottage ‘Whimble’ (marked on the map of Llangunllo). Charlotte and James went on to have three children. James died in 1864, and the following year Charlotte married David Evans a man 18 years her junior. Charlotte died in 1883. Evan born 1818, nothing further is known about him, other than he was still alive and single in 1851 living with his mother. George 1820, once again we have no information about him. Evan and Mary may have been living in the farm Hill Top, but they certainly were not wealthy, we have records of Charitable Donations being given to Evan at various times by the Parish of Llangunllo. 1815 Evan Thomas was given Charitable Donation by Ballot 5s 0d 1818 Evan Thomas was given Charitable Donations of 1s 6d 1819 Evan Thomas received 1s 0d charitably given to the poor 1823 Evan Thomas received another donation because he was chargeable to the parish for weekly relief. 1826 Evan Thomas had 2s 6d Evan died in 1836 aged 64, the address given on his burial record is “Upper Pendraenog”, we have found Mary on the 1841 census but the address given is “Bryndraenog”, we are not sure whether these are actual names of the farm or descriptions given by the curate/enumerator. The evidence, that they are the same, lies in the translations that we have been able to make from the Welsh dictionary, which gives the definition of Pen as being head, Bryn as being hill and Draenog as being hedgehog. But what really convinces us is the translation of Hilltop into Welsh, which the dictionary gives as Pen y bryn. On the census, Mary, gives her age as 72, when in reality it should have been 66, but the confirmation that this is our Mary lies in the fact that Evan, her son, lives with her and also there is a child called John Pugh aged 10, who on the 1881 census turns up living with her daughter Charlotte. On the 1851 census Mary’s address is ‘Hill Top’, and Evan is still living with her, further evidence is the Tithe Apportionments of 1839, which gives the name of the Landowner and Occupier of Hill Top as Evan Thomas, this would be Mary’s son. Mary died in January 1852 aged 76 at Hill Top. We often say that genealogy is 99% hard work and 1% pure luck and this 1% can sometimes reveal more information than many hours of hard slog in front of a microfiche viewer looking at records. Such was the case when one day we were going around the Mantle Trail taking photographs for the family album. We remember it was raining at the time we pulled into Llangunllo and being unable to see the church, Sheila jumped out of the car to ask directions of a couple, who had been tidying up the village cenotaph. In the course of the conversation Sheila explained what we were doing and which family we were researching. The man explained that he was the local historian and if we called at his cottage after we had finished he might have some information for us. David, being the old sceptic that he is, and not wishing to bother anyone, was all for pushing on after taking his photographs, but at Sheila’s insistence, and not for the first time, he gave in and we went down to the couple’s cottage. And not for the first time also, we were glad that we had, for there is one thing that we have learned over the many years of our searching ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’. Clive
Townsend, the local historian, speculated that the
parents of Evan Thomas were a John and Jane, and
gave information of where they used to live.
Unfortunately we have not been able to corroborate
this, as we cannot find a baptism record for Evan in
Llangunllo. Clive also showed us
Map of Llangunllo showing Hill Top Farm and Whimble Cottage the location of the farm, Hill Top, where Evan and Mary lived, worked and raised their family. He then told us of an American woman, who had been there only two weeks before, searching the exact same family. And while he wouldn’t give out her details, he did promise to get in touch with her and give over our name and address. With this we thanked him for his help and went on our way, and sure enough a few weeks later we received a letter from America that began ‘Hi cousin’. Bernice Mistrot lives in Houston, Texas and has been searching the family history on behalf of her husband Gustave, who is a direct descendant of William Thomas, the son of Evan and Mary. Two items of interest sent to us by Bernice are the Family Tree of Gustave going back to William, and a copy of a letter from Mary Thomas to her son William in America.
Gustave Mistrot's family tree William Evan Thomas son of Evan & Mary
William went to America approximately 1831-33, and received his conditional Land Grant Certificate from the Republic of Texas in 1839. The 320-acre parcel of land on the South East edge of Harris County near Clear Creek (now near NASA’s Mission Control Centre) was conveyed by unconditional Certificate in 1845. He sold it three years later for less than $1 an acre and purchased property closer to the young city of Houston. He owned the Mustang Stable in Houston and operated a Taxi Service between Houston and Galveston. He was an alderman of Houston’s First Ward between 1863-1866. William died on 6 August 1867 at the age of 57. At the age of 42 William married Ann Major who was only 16 in Houston in 1853 and raised seven children. Mary, a census record shows that she was born in 1850 in Bohemia, suggesting that she may have been adopted. She married Bernard McManmon a blacksmith in Galveston and had at least two children. Lavinia Fanny married Frederick Karl Danish, a tailor and had either ten (some say thirteen) children, seven of whom lived to adulthood , but only two had children.William Evan Jnr became successively a boilermaker, a Deputy Sheriff and saloon proprietor. He married a Maria Elizabeth Groves and had seven children. Emily Amelia married twice, first William Smith Russell, a bookkeeper, by whom she had two sons, and secondly James H Harrison, an English ship’s captain. Jennie also married twice, first L Munson Hitchcock, the second husband Thomas Walter Scollard, being a prominent Dallas real estate developer by whom she had three children. Henry Major was the sheriff in Galveston for about 30 years; he married Bettie Gebert and had two daughters. Augusta ‘Gussie’ Mildred married John A Kirklicks, a native of Lithuania, an Attorney and Judge, they had two daughters. Gussie was only a year old when her father died. It is through Gussie’s line that our Cousin Gus comes from. Ann Thomas nee Major married three times, her last husband deserted her, so in March 1891 she deeded the property left her by William Thomas to her daughter Gussie. Ann died in 1892.
|
