Sources for Research in Welsh Genealogy

A knowledge of English genealogical sources can get you a long way in researching Welsh family history, especially for the period after the introduction of civil registration and the nominal census. Research in the Principality does have its own peculiarities, so this online guide to sources, compiled from The Local History and Genealogy Reading Room of the US Library of Congress, is welcome.

The sources are given under the headings: Handbooks; Pedigrees and Family Histories; Bibliographies; Parish Registers; Local History; Biographical Information; Records; Maps, Atlases, Gazetteers; Geographical Names; Personal Names; Periodicals; Religions; and Welsh in the United States.

Aside from the sources listed the guide recommends two web sites, the National Library of Wales and GENUKI for Wales.

Some of the sources are quite old and unlikely to be found in your local library, but being well out of copyright may have become available online. One such, found through Google Books, is the 1852 publication "A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen" by Robert Williams.

For those who find the idea of a whole book on "eminent Welshmen" rather unlikely, is it any more oxymoronic than one on "sober Scotsmen" or "modest Englishmen" or "sensitive Americans" or "intellectual hockey fans"?