Good paid site for research in Wales??

Question

I hope this question is not inappropriate to ask on Wikitree.   

I have a lot of trouble with brick walls of my grandfather's family in northern Wales.  He was born 1885 and I can only, with certainty, find his parents.  

Familysearch.org is somewhat helpful but doesn't give me enough information to sort out the 500 John Williamses who married the 500 Ann Griffiths in the same year in the same county.  (exaggerating only a bit...)

SO if I were to break down and join a paid site with UK sources what would be a recommendation for the best one?  I am tired of playing a guessing game.  

Thank you.

Comments

Kim, I have many north Wales ancestors and it can be very difficult to decide which records could be correct, and I have Williams and Griffith ancestors.

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Well you can always just ask here for free ... In any case I think you're being overly modest. I just checked John Williams for you and his parents seem cast-iron and very well researched.

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Thank you for your encouragement!  I try to loop around on my watchlist and go back to the earlier ones often and make improvements.

And yes I should certainly take advantage of the accumulated knowledge of my fellow Wikitreers!

Answer 1

My choice would be Find My Past, their records are better organised and much easier to search than FS or Ancestry, you can choose how long to sign up for, with varying costs for what type of records you want to view.

Make sure you join Find My Past.uk, not .com

Comments

Thank you. I will do that.

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Rosemary; Thanks for the best answer star

Answer 2

As well as paid sites, you should check the free Welsh Newspapers Online site.

Here's one story that might be about your ancestor (then again, maybe not: John Williams is a common name after all).

Comments

And another story to check out, this one in Welsh.

It tells of a John Williams, 20 years old (in 1909), who shot himself with a gun (assumed by accident, not suicide). He was born in America but came back to Wales when young to live with his grandfather John Williams at Llety, Llanfairfechan.

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That's interesting (and sad).  My Williams family lived at Lletty in Llanfairfechan for some time.  It's where my grandfather his siblings were born.  That John may well be a relative!  

I'm trying to learn to read Welsh a little bit so I can decipher gravestones.

Answer 3

Have you thought of contacting the North Wales Family History Societies? The Clwyd Family History Society and the Gwynedd Family History Society cover North Wales between them and both have websites.  I'm not sure what the situation is with the Gwyned society but Clwyd are working on making collections (or transcriptions) available on line to their members. It might be worth contacting them both to see if they have online records which would be useful to you if you join their society.

Comments

Great, thank you.