Parish of Cenarth including the town of Newcastle Emlyn One-Place Study

The town of Newcastle Emlyn (Castell Newydd Emlyn in Welsh) lies adjacent to the river Teifi which forms the boundary between the counties of Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.

Historically part of the Parish of Cenarth, the small village of the same name which lies some 3 miles by road to the west of the town and is also adjacent to the river Teifi.

The name Emlyn refers to the cantref, a medieval land division in Wales. The original name was Newcastle in Emlyn as the castle there was built around 1240 by Mareudydd ap Rhys, a prince of Deheubarth. Established as a timber and earth fort in the middle of the 13th century it later developed into stone and replaced the older one at Cilgerran some eight miles away.

The name Emlyn derives from the Welsh “am glyn” referring to the area around the valley of the river Cuch.

My great great great grandfather John Jones was born in the town on the 8th January 1820 the son of Thomas Jones and Sarah Davies.

Because of the difficulties of identification my One-Place Study developed many years ago. For example of the 2400 people living in the town in 1851, 80% shared only 4 surnames – Jones, Davies, Thomas and Evans. I hope to illustrate later how I went about the identification process using family reconstitution amongst other techniques.