John Tyler Marriage to Belinda Ruck 12/25/1863 (General)

by rookancestrybest , United Kingdom, Monday, September 14, 2009, 21:40 (5628 days ago) @ Searcher99

Unfortunately Monmouth is one of those places on the border of England and Wales and it is sometimes categorised as England, sometimes as Wales and often as both. As far as the people who came from there were concerned, many spoke Welsh and would thus have classed themselves as Welsh whether it was officially in England or Wales at the time. This was because they would consider themselves to be culturally Welsh and might also have spoken the language. I would say you should look in both English and Welsh registries as villages nearby could be in either England or Wales and the borders could have changed. Some of my family were from the English side of the Forest of Dean(Coleford) which is, and always has been, classed as England, but they could speak Welsh and were proud of their Welsh heritage and would proabably have said they were both English and Welsh!!! In fact my great-great uncle, who moved to Yorkshire, still spoke Welsh there along with his neighbour Mr. Jones who came from South Wales. You will also find that the families in the Monmouth area have a mixture of both Welsh and English people.
From Slowhands' research it appears we may be connected but I will now look at Google Earth to see in which part of Pennsylvania, Houtzdale is situated. The saddest thing of all is that I lived in Washington D.C. in the later 1970s with a family where one of the people was of "Pennsylvania Dutch" origin. I travelled there often (to Lancaster County) to see her relatives and didn't realise the connection. Now having done a great deal of family history I am finding that other places in the USA, including "out West" where I visited also have family connections (some with the Forest of Dean people and some with the other side of my family) and I keep thinking "if only I had known then what I know now"...and what a small world it really is.