Williams Family History

Family History

Rhys has been researching the family history for the last few years, in his spare time! He’s got a good way back with some branches of his family on his mother’s side, and both sides of Jean’s family.

His own father’s family - WILLIAMS - came from Glamorgan, Wales and as you can imagine it is not proving easy to find the right Williamses, though we're making slow progress. Dad died in 1975 at only 57; his father (picture far right) died in 1919 at only 27, in an accident at the Dowlais steelworks.

Rhys' father, Thomas Charles Williams, 1917 - 1975. Picture taken in Swanage, Dorset

Rhys' father, Tom, at a wedding reception in the 1960s

Rhys' father Tom with his Uncle Charlie, possibly on the beach at Barry Island, probably in the mid 1920s. This photo from a very old plate in poor condition.

Rhys' grandfather, Tom's father, David Thomas Williams 1892 - 1919

Rhys’ mother’s family includes the names BLUNN, McKIEL and FLETCHER and these are proving a little easier to trace. The BLUNNs go back several generations in Sheffield, England where they were part of a large family of glass cutters and merchants. Before then they were said to be of Flemish Huguenot origin. (They were thought to have been weavers, but maybe something to do with Flemish glass?) We've not been able to prove direct links back beyond the early 1800s in Sheffield yet, but still working on it.

The FLETCHERs come from Alderwasley, near Wirksworth in Derbyshire, England. Fortunately a very helpful chap has put all the old Wirksworth parish registers (before the statutory records) onto the internet so we have been able to build a good picture of them back to the 1600s.

We know that the McKIELs were in Nova Scotia, Canada, when Rhys' great-grandparents Marshall Fletcher and Minnie McKeil married there in 1880, and there are several McKeils / McKiels (spelling seems to be interchangeable) there now, including some proven cousins. Before then we thought that the McKEILs probably came originally from Scotland or Northern Ireland, but that name does not seem to ever have existed there, and there is some evidence that the family came originally from the Netherlands, the derivation of McKeil being an Americanisation of the first name of a Dutchman called Michiel Bastiensen van Kortrijk several generations earlier. We have been in contact with two or three newly discovered cousins in Canada and the USA and are trying to piece together a lot of new information.

Much of the information appears to be sound and leads back into the 1500s in the Netherlands, but there are too many gaps and discrepancies to be certain of the connections yet. This branch includes spellings of McKIEL, MacKEIL and MEKEEL and the original Michiel emigrated to New Amsterdam (now New York) with his brother and both their families in the mid 1600's. It seems that his name was abbreviated on arrival in America. It is also possible that this Michiel was the grandson of a Spaniard called Sebastian Cortez in what was then the Spanish Netherlands (mid 1500's). Clearly a lot of research yet to do here to confirm or correct information so I'm not certain of it all yet. Kortrijk is a town in what is now Belgium, that we must visit sometime. This means, of course, that if both Blunn and McKiel stories are true, that both families were in close proximity in what are now known as the low countries at the same time hundreds of years ago.

This picture is of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial at Thiepval, in Northern France. On the large white panels near the bottom are carved the names of 72,000 men who were killed on the Somme - in the immediate area surrounding Thiepval village - during the First World War (90% of them between July and November 1916) whose bodies could not be found and buried individually. One of them is Frank FLETCHER, Rhys' mother's uncle (who died before she was born). Nearby at Vis-en Artois is another memorial containing the name of Thomas CUTTLE, Jean's grandmother's first husband. It is a truly awe-ful and immensely sad place. Rhys and Jean visited in May 2001. Click on the picture for an enlargement to get a real sense of the place. There was a memorial service there earlier this year (2006) to commemorate the Battle of the Somme.

On Jean’s side her family names include GRAVES, HILL, BROTHERHOOD and WHYBROW, which have provided us with interesting links to newly discovered cousins. We have some details of GRAVES going back to the late 1700s in Kent, England, via a few years in Barbados in the West Indies, where James GRAVES married Dorothy LASHLEY in the 1850's and had seven children. We've found several LASHLEYs still there but not yet confirmed connections - if you might be one do get in touch. There is a GRAVES family association web site, but it's a fairly popular name and we have no connections yet. We've been in London a lot lately and coincidentally staying in Woolwich on the site of the old Royal Arsenal - now very nicely done up - where some of Jean's father's forebears lived may years ago.

The BROTHERHOODs are recorded on the Leicestershire / Warwickshire border at Grendon, Sheepy Magna and Higham-on-the-Hill back into the 1700s, maybe earlier. The story is that this particular family made-up their Brotherhood name - they were protestant immigrants from France fleeing persecution. Our lot go clearly back to the mid 1700s in England. Maybe French before then, but no evidence (yet!)

This picture is of Jean's great great grandfather Joseph Brotherhood with his wife Sarah and three of their ten children. (We believe the children are Emily(b.1875), Harriet (b.1879) and Joseph (b.1881)

There is a list of the names in our index here, and a list of useful links to Family History websites: