Returning to my own Family History, I thought that this time I’d look into my Pembrokeshire roots by looking at my paternal grandmother’s family.
My paternal grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Morgan and she was born in 1901 in Brawdy, in Pembrokeshire. So far, I have traced the branches of my grandmother’s family tree back to at least the early 1800’s; some branches of her tree have been traced to as far back as the 1600’s.
Each direct ancestor I have discovered so far on my grandmother’s tree was born and bred in Pembrokeshire. My grandmother, her siblings and her parents, my great grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth Ann Morgan, nee Prickett, were one of the first of my direct ancestors from Pembrokeshire to leave their home county and start a new life somewhere else, even though it was only in the next county, Carmarthenshire!
Left to right: Elizabeth Ann Morgan, nee Prickett (my great grandmother), Mary Elizabeth Morgan (my grandmother), Joseph Henry Morgan, Percival Thomas Morgan (my great uncles), Phoebe Eustacia Kentish Morgan (my great aunt) and Thomas Henry Morgan (my great grandfather) Date approx. 1915
My Great Grandparents
My grandmother’s family were mostly farmers and agricultural labourers, with a couple of miners and a publican thrown in amongst them. Thomas Morgan, my great grandfather, was born in the early 1880’s in Pembrokeshire; so far, I’ve been unable to pinpoint the exact date and place of birth for Thomas.
Over the years, Thomas worked as a farm servant, an agricultural labourer, a cavalryman in the First World War, a lorry driver and finally, a farmer. He owned his own farm, Moat Farm, on Pembrey Mountain, near Trimsaran, from about 1932.
My Great Grandfather Thomas Henry Morgan in the First World War (right and below left).
My great grandmother, Elizabeth Prickett, was born in Roch, Pembrokeshire in1881. Elizabeth’s parents, Joseph and Elizabeth/ Eliza Prickett, lived at Start Naked Farm in Roch.
Thomas and Elizabeth married in the Haverfordwest area in early 1900. Between 1901 and 1932, Thomas and Elizabeth lived in various locations including Brawdy, Kidwelly, Felinfoel, Furnace, and back to Haverfordwest, before settling in Moat Farm, Trimsaran where they stayed until they died, Elizabeth in 1959 and Thomas in 1965.
My grandmother was their eldest child, one of seven children born between 1901 and 1919. They had four daughters and three sons, but one daughter and one son both died as babies in the first few weeks of their lives, their son in 1902 and a daughter in 1904. Their surviving children all lived well into adulthood, living until their sixties, seventies and eighties.
My Great Great Grandparents
My great grandfather Thomas was the eldest of twelve children born between the early 1880’s and 1905, the year of the birth of his youngest sibling. His parents were Henry Morgans and Ellen Morgans, nee Davies. Two of his siblings had died by the time of the 1911 Census.
By the 1911 Census, not only had Thomas and his wife and family moved to Carmarthenshire, but his parents and eight of his surviving siblings had moved to Bargoed, near Merthyr Tydfil, presumably in search of work. Bargoed was originally a market town, which grew considerably after a colliery opened there in 1903.
In the 1901 Census, Henry, Ellen and eight of their surviving children, with ages ranging from 7 months to 17 years, were living in Roch, Pembrokeshire. Their eldest child, Thomas, and his wife and new baby daughter, my grandmother, were living in Brawdy. Their next eldest, Benjamin, was a farm servant on a farm in Brawdy. Henry’s occupation is listed as “farm labourer”.
Within the next ten years, they were living in Bargoed; they had eight of their children living with them, including a new addition to the family, a son, born in 1905 in Pembrokeshire. Thomas, my great grandfather, was living in Felinfoel with his family; Benjamin, Henry and Ellen’s second eldest child, was married and living in Cwmavon, near Port Talbot. By the time of the 1911 Census, one of Henry and Ellen’s sons listed on the 1901 Census, James, had died.
My great grandmother Elizabeth Ann Morgan(s), nee Prickett, was the daughter of Joseph Prickett and Elizabeth (Eliza) Smith. Elizabeth’s father Joseph had been married once before and had 7 children from his first marriage. His first wife died in 1877, when their youngest child was about 7 years old.
In 1879, he married for the second time, to my great, great grandmother Elizabeth Smith. Their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1881. Up until recently, I thought that my great grandmother was the only child from their marriage, but after studying the 1911 Census record for the family, I noticed that they had in fact had two children over the course of their marriage, with one child dying at an unspecified time.
Joseph Prickett was born in 1826, in the parish of St. Lawrence, near the village of Wolfscastle. In the 1851 Census, Joseph’s occupation is given as farm labourer/servant. By the 1861 Census, Joseph is a farmer, with his own farm, Start Naked Farm, near Roch. This is where Joseph and Elizabeth lived until Joseph’s death in 1913. Joseph is buried in Pembrokeshire.
I have had more success with their wives’ family trees. I have traced the family line of Ellen Davies, Henry’s wife, to the early 1600’s in one branch of her family tree.
Ellen was the granddaughter of Thomas Raymond and Elizabeth Codd; the Codd family line is the line that I have traced back to the early 1600’s using information from other people related to the Codd family that I have been in contact with during my research, using wills kept in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth and by using the Pembrokeshire Hearth Tax of 1670.
I have traced the family line of Joseph Prickett’s wife, Elizabeth/Eliza Smith to the late 1700’s. Elizabeth was born as Eliza in St. Edren’s Parish, Pembrokeshire in 1847. From the time of her birth and up until the 1871 Census, she was known as Eliza. For some reason, by the time of her marriage in 1879, she had changed her name to Elizabeth. Just to make things even more confusing, Elizabeth was also the name of Joseph’s first wife! I have traced Elizabeth/ Eliza’s family back as far as the late 1700’s, all born in Pembrokeshire
I had to use the will of Eliza’s sister Phoebe and work with a distant cousin who is a descendant of one of Eliza’s brothers, and use our joint findings to confirm that Eliza and Elizabeth was the same person. Also, the place of birth given for Eliza/ Elizabeth in the 1911 Census helped as she gave the name of the farm where she was born, which confirmed th
e conclusion that I and my distant cousin had reached.
I have traced the other branches of Thomas Morgans’ tree as far back as the mid to late 1700’s, all of them in Pembrokeshire. On Elizabeth Ann Prickett’s paternal side, I have traced back just one more generation to her paternal grandfather, also named Joseph, who was born in Pembrokeshire in about 1800.
Genealogists say that your family tree is never totally complete, but that it is always a work in progress. When I look at my tree, I know that is true; I see a lot of information that, just five years ago, I wasn’t aware of, but I know that there is much more information out there about my ancestors that I haven’t even discovered yet!
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