Community Woodland for Llangennech & District  

William Bowen and Troserch Woods

In 1976, my uncle was moving out of the family home in Felinfoel and he passed on to me an old Bible that had belonged to my grandmother. An inscription at the front of the Bible started me thinking about family history. It referred to my great grandfather, John Bowen, and gave his place of birth as Graiglwyd, Llannon. The day and month of his birth were also given, but not the year. From the Llanelli Registry Office, I obtained a copy of his 1890 marriage certificate, which gave his age as 24. His father was given as William Bowen, farm labourer. In the 1881 census, I located John Bowen, born Llannon, age 16, living in the Neptune Hotel in New Dock Road. His occupation was given as "butcher’s errand boy". Based upon these two pieces of information, I estimated that his birth year was 1866 and I tried to obtain a copy of his birth certificate from the Records Office in London. They searched the births in 1866, and a couple of years either side, but they could find no record matching the information I provided. I was also unable to find John and William Bowen on the 1871 census. At that stage, I got disheartened and abandoned my family history research!

In January 2006, I got started again, when I obtained access to all the England and Wales census, and birth, marriage and death, records via the web through Ancestry.com. I was now able to complete many branches in my family tree, but John Bowen’s birth and family details remained a mystery. However, by using the Llanelly (North) First Series Ordnance Survey map, I did discover two buildings marked with the name Graiglwyd, located on either side of the road from Porth Dafen to the main Felinfoel to Llannon road, and very close to the boundary between the parishes of Llanelly, Llannon and Llangennech. Using this information, I searched the 1861 census and found a William Bowen (agricultural labourer), living with his wife Ann and two daughters, Betsy and Ann, and a lodger in Troserch Woods. They are listed after Alltyfranfach and Troserchwood Cott and before Troserch Mill. Given the name William Bowen, his occupation and the location close to Graiglwyd, I felt that this was a strong possibility for the family of John Bowen, but I had no definite proof. I visited the Llanelli Register Office and again asked for a search of the births around 1866, but with no success. By the end of November 2006, I was beginning to feel that perhaps the birth had not been registered when, in another context, my attention was drawn to the FamilySearch.org website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Using the search facility provided on their home page I looked for the birth of John Bowen in Wales in the period 1861-1871. Under the International Genealogical Index (IGI), I was really surprised to find the birth entry I was looking for: John Bowen, born Llannon, Carmarthen, 30 July 1863, father William Bowen, mother Ann Thomas. I don’t know who made this entry in the IGI, it just says that it was made sometime after 1991. John’s birth certificate confirms that his actual birth date was July 30 and not the July 27 recorded in the family Bible. My incorrect assumption of 1866 meant that his birth was not found in the standard searches, which normally look through two years on either side of the specified date.

Now that I’d identified the correct family, I wanted to know what happened to John and his family. I discovered that William and Ann were married on October 1, 1855 in Sion Chapel. They both gave their residence as Porthdafen. Their daughters Betsy and Ann were born in 1858 and 1860 respectively and their birth certificates give their place of birth as Graiglwyd. At the Carmarthenshire Record Office, I found from the Llangennech Parish Records that little Ann died in 1862, that Betsy died in 1865 and that their mother Ann died in 1867. Their death certificates give Graiglwyd as the place of death, with Betsy dying of scarlet fever and the other two both recorded as dying of unknown causes. Armed with this information, I returned again to the 1871 census to try and locate William and John. Searches for either William Bowen or John Bowen, giving the respective ages and places of birth, produced no matches. I then remembered that I had previously found entries in which the names had been incorrectly transcribed and so I searched for first name John, no surname specified, age around 8 and place of birth Llanelly. This produced John and William Benson who were both listed as inmates in the Llanelly Union Workhouse. These are certainly the missing John and William as, by looking at the original entry on the census page, the actual surname is clearly Bowen and the ages are correct. There are two other "Benson" children listed as inmates, Griffith and Mary A, but I have not been able to determine yet if they were John’s siblings. Unfortunately, there are no surviving records from the Llanelly Union Workhouse for that period. William did not survive very long after the census and he died of scrofula in the Workhouse in July 1871.

John Bowen married Eleanor Bowen in Capel Newydd, Llanelli in 1890. Their first child, Elizabeth Ann, was my grandmother. He suffered from TB and spent some time in Sealyham Hospital in Pembrokeshire. He died of TB in 1926 in Mount Pleasant, Llanelli.

Detail of the front matter of the family Bible, giving details of the birth of John Bowen. To download the full size version click here

John Bowen, standing, third from left. Picture believed to have been taken at either Parc Howard or Capel Newydd