I found a photo of my Welsh Harrison's ancestral cottage in the Welsh section of a book of Great Britian and Northern Europe that I was looking at. This was at Llanthony, near Abergavenny, not that the book said this, but I recognised it. This was the home of the original George Harrison, my great great great grandfather. My Harrison's living in this cottage as Llanthony, as revealed in the census's: 1841 Census Upper Cwmyoy The Mill George Harrison, age 50, with family, and wifes nephew Jeff Jones age 3. 1851 Census Upper Cwmyoy, Mill House, Llanthony George Harrison, age 55, miller, born in Glamorgan Margaret Harrison, wife, age 53, born Brecon Children: Lewis, 28, agriultural labourer; Margaret, 16; Martha, 11 - all born Upper Cwmyoy Elizabeth Harrison, grandaughter, age 2, born Upper Cwymyoy William Parry, visitor, age 45, unmarried, carpenter, born Upper Cwmyoy 1861 Cenus Upper Cwmyoy, Mill Cottage, Llanthony
George Harrison, age 70 and a widower, with daughter Elizabeth as housekeeper and grandaughter Elizabeth aged 12
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I have been absorbed in writing info in my genealogy website for my ancestor, George Harrison the original, the miller of Llanthony, which I work at till half past three in the morning. I still feel I need to weave something magical through his story before I can conclude. The only glimpse I get into his personality is him exposing himself in Abergavenny, and I'm not sure what that says! As for his last days, they were in the workhouse. The seeds began in those workhouse days for our present day norm of institutionalising the old, with strangers caring for them rather than ones family. In reading of Wales I wanted to be there, which is the same when I focus on Shetland for those islands, and regarding Kerry in Ireland for my Irish. That night I didn't sleep easily, and when I did I dreamt that my ancient Scottish home was Rio Dolmen. I do look this up the next morning and such a place does not exist. Suspending Welsh genealogy for now, I write up about my ancestress Eleanor Caroline Barton, a line I am far more attuned to, studying her childhood orphanage days. The Queen herself was patroness of Eleanor's orphanage. and gave donations. The orphan girls would sing to audiences to gain more donations. They were lovely, well looked after and easy to adore. Society ladies would choose from among them their future servants. Eleanor learnt to read and write while there. But, also, she encountered for the first time there dreaded tuberculosis, one of the girls having died from it. It could be that in those times the disease seeded in her, latent, waiting to overcome her in young adulthood. I rewrote my Welsh genealogy of George Harrison the miller of Llanthony and this time was happier with the outcome. For the first time I realise that he absolutely must have had more children, their being such gaps, and I look to find out who they may be, but these Welsh records are not easy, almost as hopeless as Irish ones. And I work on Eleanor Caroline Barton's London orphanage days, quite interesting, finding reports of the orphanage fund raising meetings and the songs the girls sang, and a picture of the banqueting hall with raised gallery upon which they sang with all their scrubbed clean and cute appeal. My Eleanor Caroline was there, in that gallery, singing. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I stick to the work of researching newspaper records of my family and have found a couple of interesting ones. One was for my ancestor George Harrison, the original, fined for indecent exposure on the streets of Abergavenny, whoops, and another was about George's oldest son, Lewis, being reluctantly pushed to support him in his older years. When I look at the Welsh borderland region, where they lived, I became nostalgic for this land and know I want to be there again, that a part of my soul is always there, there between Crickhowell to Llanbedr, by Patrishow, to Llanthony and Cwmyoy, the Sugarloaf mountain, the abandoned slag heaps, the Dan-yr-ogof caves, Hay bluff, and that taste once more of the lavabread of the Abregavenny deli. if I had to return to Britian eventually, then why not there. From Govilon up to the ghost village of Pwlldu. The land of my fathers, all this is. I never made it up to Shetland, another ancestral place, and more recently, I learn, so is County Kerry in Ireland. An epic journey may be in order one day to explore all this. The Bog of Allen in central Ireland. The Forest of Dean. Greenwich, in the south of London. Vast homelands. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Being once more curious about the Indian ancestry of my friend, Angus, I researched an update for him, of Cullens and Van Serens, a colonial breed of many generations, who were totally at home in India. I got so much further back with this than previously I had.
I soon enough moved on from Angus's family tree to embellishing my own, looking more into my Welsh origins. I looked at my branch of the Rosser family who lived in Llangattock, Llanelli, Llanthony, and LLantilio Pertholey, all those double 'll's', who latterly farmed at Upper Triley Farm on 190 acres of land, and who intermarried with the Harrison's of Llanthony. In this I became totally absorbed, as well as with my Thomas's and Morgan's, boat builders of Govilon and Wonastowe, those that passed on their long life gene that my Pop benefited from.
I created a filmlet on the subject of my Welsh Harrison ancestors, from my grandfather George Harrison of Varteg back to George Harrison of Llanthony. I worked so hard to create this again and again, the windows movie maker repeatedly declaring it to be an 'incorrect format' or 'corrupted' and refusing to open up. I kept on slogging and eventually was successful in my endeavour.
My parents and I went off on a trip to Wales, heading off along the M4, dads boat on top of the car, and the caravan towing behind us. One of the Caravan Club Sites we stayed at was beside the village of Pandy, close enough to our family Harrison ancestral homes for me to do some family tree research. From there we drove to the nearby village of Llanvihangel Crucorney, which I knew from the census's was where my great great grandfather William Harrison had lived. His house, Bridgend, was supposed to be right by the old Mill which his brother Lewis had been the miller of, and indeed there we found a house called 'Bridge Cottage', very old looking, but which dad reckoned wouldn't be the one, although later we would find out that it was our old family home after all. The rains came so we got back into the car and headed along the Honddu river up the valley, until we came to the hamlet of Llanthony. Not only was this a special place for our family but its old priory was on a leyline. My great great great grandfather George Harrison (the father of William and Lewis Harrison) had been the miller there. His home Mill Cottage was a scenic beauty, still standing, and there were some remains of the old mill there too. We called at the Mill Cottage and were invited in by the occupant, Mrs Powell, who had lived there for 62 years, and was nice and receptive to us. We visited the abbey ruins and looked around the church and graveyard, though found no Harrison graves. Dad enthused about our ancestral cottage and land, toying with the idea of buying it all one day from the Powells. We searched more for the graves of George and his wife, Margaret, further up the valley at Capel-y-Fin, looking through two graveyards there, and then back down at the village of Cwmyoy, but found no trace of any Harrisons. My mum decided she would be my genealogy assistant in the record Office at Cwmbran and so my dad drove us there and left us. The archivist was a shy cute Welsh boy. Llanthony records revealed nothing to us about the deaths of George or the baptisms of his children. It remained a mystery to us as to which church they had attended. We searched through many records and mum enjoyed herself a lot doing it, thinking it was something she could quite get hooked on. When my dad picked us up we shopped in Abergavenny and on the way back to the caravan site stopped for a search of the Llanvihangel Crucorney graveyard. It was there that dad discovered the grave of Lewis Harrison, who was Williams brother, by the church. We continued our grave searching, going to Govilon where William Harrisons wife, Ann Thomas, had come from. In the baptist graveyard there a lady came over to talk to us and pointed out the ancient baptism pool where people were once submerged into the water. Driving off up into the mountains we were looking for the hamlet of Pwlldu where William Harrison had looked after the pit ponies and my great grandfather (his son) John Harrison had been born. This took a while to find as there were no signs leading there. In fact, all that remained of the old hamlet were a couple of buildings, one a pub and the other an outdoor activity centre. We knocked on the door of the Lamb Fox Inn but there was no answer. A car drove up and a man, who ignored us, went into a shed. When we went over to talk to him he said the pub was open still, but he wasn't talking anymore with his father who ran the place. He confirmed that we were in Pwlldu and said the old miners cottages, school and chapel had been knocked down in 1963. He showed us lumps in the ground which were all that remained of them, showed us where the pit ponies had been kept and told us of the old tunnel which led through the mountain to Blaenavon. Mum eventually got the mans father Mr Lewis to open the pub door and we had a chat with him. He told us a BBC film of Pwlldu had been made before it was knocked down. I explored around the area, taking photographs, and further up we found the tunnel which had water in and a crumbled roof. We carried on to Blaenavon for more graveyard searching, and afterwards came to Varteg where John Harrison had begun his career as a miner who checked for gas to be sure all would be safe. The Methodist church revealed no graves for him even though we were well aware he had died there. Varteg merged into Garndiffaith. Dad had spent some of his childhood there and I remembered us all visiting the place when I was little. Great aunt Alice, Pop's sister, was still there, living in an old peoples home, so we called on her and she welcomed us nicely with tea and biscuits. She told us that John Harrison (her father) was indeed buried in the Varteg graveyard but in an unmarked grave. Stopping at Llanvihangel Crucorney mum and I went to enquire at Bridge Cottage as to whether the place had originally been called Bridgend. The lady there told us her house was ancient, the oldest one in the village, but as far as she knew it had always been called Bridge Cottage. She enthused about its history and showed us a book which not only had a picture of her cottage in it, but also one of our Llanthony cottage, which stated many famous painters had once done water colours of it. Inviting us into the cottage she showed us the original old beams and other features. It was an amazing place. She phoned her daughter who owned the cottage to ask if she knew of a Bridgend in the village, and she confirmed to us that this cottage indeed had been Bridgend. And knowing this, we excitedly took photographs both inside and out, and the lady, Mrs Snelus, took us for a tour of the gardens. It was on the last day of our Welsh holiday that we were in Cardiff, at St Mellons to visit another great aunt, May (another of Pop's sisters), who lived in an old peoples home there, drinking tea with her while reminiscing about the Harrison family history, both old and modern. Thus ended our Welsh holiday, for the next day we were off back to England.
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AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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