Is there a connection between Thomas Evans (1766-1833), Evan Evans (abt 1821-) and John Evans (1822-1893)?

Question

Thomas Evans (known as Tomos Glyn Cothi) was born in 1766 at the farm Capel St Silyn in Gwernogle, Carmarthenshire.

On the 1841 Census, Capel St Silyn was occupied by Evan Evans, who was born about 1821.

Later still, the farm was occupied by John Evans, who was born about 1822 and lived at Capel St Silyn from about 1864 until his death in 1893.

Obviously all three men have the same surname, and it was common for farms to be inherited or otherwise passed on to other members of a family.

Thomas and John were both congregationalists (Thomas later became a unitarian), and as there is no matching baptism record for Evan, it seems reasonable to believe that he was also a non-conformist.

All of these factors taken together imply a decent possibility of a family connection between at least some of them, but I can't find anything as of yet. Does anyone have any suggestions of how we might be able to try to connect them please?

Comments

Are there any property records?  If they owned a farm there may be records of the transfer from generation to generation.  I'd be careful about any assumptions about the Evanses although in your case living on the same farm is a strong link. Along with Jones (the English version of Evans), Evans is about the most common Welsh surname.  And if you're really unlucky like me, you have an Evans who married a Jones!

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Yeah, if it wasn't for them living on the same farm I'd not even consider the possibility of a link. I wouldn't be surprised if there is one, but neither would I be surprised if there isn't one!

Good idea about property records. I'll have a look into that. I didn't find any relevant wills on the NLW's index, but I'll see if I can find any records of ownership. Thanks!

Answer 1

Evan is the Welsh version of John. Could be that you are looking at two people, not three.

Comments

In this case I'm pretty sure that they're two different people, as they show up on the censuses separately and have different spouses - but thanks for the suggestion! :)

Answer 2

Have you checked out Wills? Sometimes farmers passed dow their leases even if they weren’t the landholder. The National Library of Wales is free to use and have pretty good archives… Their search function can be annoying too..

Comments

I searched with the keywords "Evans" and "Llanfihangel Rhos-y-Corn". Got quite a few results, but none of them relevant sadly!