Introduction

Llewellyn Genealogy is the story of the Llewellyn surname in America and how it evolved.

Llewellyns were in America in the early 1600s. A few families formed the basic roots of the many Llewellyn lines many with varied spellings. The immigrants that can be identified are herein discussed. Key family lines are also discussed. Some myths are dispelled. Some myths may be created through my research conclusions.

In these conclusions I break down my analyses according to five lines of reasonable proofs:

• Personal Knowledge - Firsthand knowledge. As an example, I know my great aunt was a school teacher because I knew her and talked with her.

• Recorded – assuming the accuracy of the records, the facts are stated. A relationship stated is a factual relationship.

• Asserted – the analysis of facts suggest the obvious and are asserted as fact unless proven otherwise

• Implied – many court records document family squabbles. In particular, conflicts among family finances abound. These records are highly suggestive of certain relationships.

• Probable – I discovered that the absences of records are suggestive of proof. For example, during the eighteenth century there were eight distinctive Thomas Lewellins in Virgina. By deduction I was able to identify six of them to not be the subject of my analysis.

• Possible – often there are only a few records to locate an individual in time and location. When these individuals are proximate to known families in age and location I suggest a possible connection.
  It is unfortunate that so many records have been lost and that so much verbal family history became fragmented or lost but that too is the subject of this blog.

Next, I want to share a few key lessons that apply to anybody seeking their genealogy.

• Some records are simply no longer available. Records were recorded on paper and stored in courthouses built of wood. Accidents happened and courthouses burned down, along with the records. Also, the Civil War caused fear in many officials that their courthouses would be burned to the ground. The response to fear was to hide the records under rocks, in hollowed out fence posts, and in sacks buried in the ground. Those actions caused the loss of more records as the war lasted a long time and people simply forgot where they were hidden. And the Yankee armies did burn down many Southern county courthouses.

• You cannot rely on the spelling of a surname to delineate a family. In the mid 1850s family surnames settled in their current forms due to the advent of education and the slow expansion of literacy. Before that time, many of our ancestors were illiterate and could not sign their own names. Many records simply bear a ‘X’ scrawled on a paper. An individual’s knowledge of their surname was phonetically handed down by their parents, and never written.

• Understand the language our ancestors spoke. Our Llewellyn ancestors were often Welsh and in that language an ‘ll’ sounds somewhat like an ‘fl’ and this is what gave rise to Flewellen as opposed to Lewellen. Considering the phonetics, it is easy to understand that the census takers, the tax recorders, the doctors and the lawyers had to scribe our surname as they heard it spoken. Thus we have Flewellens and Llewellens and Lewellyns and Flewellings and all manners of alphabetical contortion, mostly at the whim of the semi-literate record keeper. See Llywelyn on Wikipedia

• Understand when and how our states and counties were formed. As an example, Washington County, Tennessee was previously Washington County, North Carolina. Amelia County, Virginia was previously Prince George County, Virginia. A good researcher will be mindful of the dates of their subjects and in which county and state they were living at the time.

Beyond the research articles I write I find myself writing about materials in which I have custodianship roles such as DNA results and a legacy archive of Llewellyn information. I intend to publish non-confidential data and to recreate some of the discussion materials from previous sites of years past.

The blog does not include a search engine but as a reader you can find information on this site using Google. The blog does not included a name index either. For now, those shortcomings must be endured.

Content is organized according to tags, which I provide as nothing more than subject areas. For example, information about my ancestors, those ancestors of whom I have personal knowledge (family photos, letters, bibles, etc.), are tagged with MyAncestors. Other tags will be the basis for organization and all will be organized with a Table of Contents at some point in the future.