Surname Saturday 2.0: The Griffiths

The Griffiths Family

Like my Jewish ancestry, this is one of my dead-end lines, and like the great-great grandmothers on those lines, I only have one person with this surname, my great-great grandmother Hannah. Unlike them, though, I have a more direct connection to Hannah. When my grandmother was small, her parents took her to Wales, where she got to meet much of her Welsh family still living there. She told me many times about how much she enjoyed visiting her grandmother, whom she knew as "Gu" (pronounced gee), and that she was allowed to sleep in her grandmother's bed with her while they stayed.

Hannah was born in 1849 in a small southwestern Welsh town called Newcastle Emlyn. I know nothing about her parents, or whether she had any siblings, despite many years of attempting to find out more about her.

What I do know is that sometime before 1882, she met and married a man named Benjamin Jones, and the two settled in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. The couple had seven children together, though I know little about most of them. Apparently they ran the area post office, and Hannah was still doing so when my grandmother's family came to visit.

Hannah's son, Daniel, was my grandmother's father. He left Wales in the early 1900s with a group of friends on a trip, and upon meeting my great-grandmother, ended up settling in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Another son, David, known as Davey, fell ill and died after wading into a lake to retrieve his mother's hat one day. He had been recovering from a flu or cold, and took a turn for the worse, and never recovered. Hannah blamed herself for his death.

Hannah and Benjamin had two daughters, May and Sophia. Both married, and my grandmother had many photos of each of their families. At least one of the sisters was still alive when my grandfather served in World War II, as he visited her and her husband while he was on leave.

Of the other three sons, Joseph, Jack, and William, I know absolutely nothing. I have no dates for any of the children aside from my great-grandfather, birth or death. I also don't know when Hanna and Benjamin married. Any help with any of this would be greatly appreciated.

The Griffith line as I currently know it is as follows, for those interested:

* Hannah Griffith married Benjamin Jones sometime before 1882 in Wales. She was born 1849 and died in 1933. They had seven children: Daniel, David, Joseph, Jack, William, May, Sophia.

* Daniel was born in 1882, and left Wales sometime in the early 1900s, traveling to Canada. There he met Eliza Jones, and married her in 1911. They had three daughters and a son. Daniel died in 1964.

* May married Brinley Jones. I do not have any dates for her, and am uncertain if they had any children.

* Sophia married Cyril Samuel. I do not have any dates for her, but I have three children listed: Basil, Beryl and Lyn.
+ Basil was born about 1920. He married Elizabeth (uncertain of last name), and the two had two children, a daughter and a son. If they or their families are reading this, I would love to get in contact with you. Particularly if you remember my great-grandmother, Bessie.
+ Beryl married Gerald Fox. I have nothing else about her, dates or if there were any children.
+ I have no further information on Lyn, either.

* The other children, I have no further information on, aside from the story of Davy's death above.

* Daniel and Eliza's children all had children of their own, and most of us still live in the Pacific Northwest today.
+ Marjorie Grace was born 1912 in Vancouver, BC. She married Herbert "Bert" Robinson in 1936, and they had three daughters, and their children and grandchildren are scattered throughout America. She died in 2011.
+ Edwina Hannah (named for her grandmother) was born in 1913. She married Kenneth Merilees in 1951, and helped raise his two older sons, and had a son with him as well. She died in 2010.
+ Merle Tydfil (named for her father's hometown) was born in 1915. She married George Bordewick in 1939, and the two had two sons and two daughters together. She died this year (2012) shortly after meeting her second great-grandchild.
+ Ivor Howell was born 1920. He married twice: Marjorie Carnahan in 1946, with whom he had two daughters, and Mary Nixon in 1952. He has several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He died in 2005.

What I don't know:

* I would like to know Hannah's parents' names.

* I would also love to know if she had siblings.

* I would love more information on her early life, and how she met Benjamin.

* I also want to know about her children, particularly the three sons I have absolutely no information on but names.

Other information about this branch of the family:
● Brick Walls: a Different Listing
● Brick Wall Update
● Griffiths