American Tracing Roots To Mountain Ash

A Memory of Mountain Ash.

My name is George Reese---and I am in the US. My relatives came mainly from Glamorgan, but a few from England. About 20 years ago, I started to research my family roots. My mother gave me a small Bible, that belonged to a young girl, who lived in Mountain Ash. In the Bible---Mountain Ash is referred to as Mount Ash. The Bible dates to the 1880s, and fortunately, the young girl wrote down a lot of family history. The last name of the family, was John. The entries in the Bible show that the girl's father, my great grandfather, was Thomas John. He died at the age of 32 years leaving a wife, and four children behind - going from memory, I believe he died in 1883. A year later my great grandmother would make the jouney to the US, with her four children.
In trying to find out more information about Thomas John - I contacted the Mountain Ash Library by email. Within a matter of days I received a response back from the library. I was dumbfounded when I learned that Mountain Ash knew where my great grandfather was buried, and in fact they had a rubbing off of his headstone and they provided the inscription to me. I can't tell you how pleased I was to have that information. But even better, they told me that my grandfather was buried with his parents. I was absolutely thrilled with how responsive the Mountain Ash Library was for my request for assistance. My relatives are buried at the Aberffryd Cemetery, at Mountain Ash. Through some research, I found out that the cemetery was no longer active. In a blog a few years ago a fellow by the name of Ed Howell, who was a native of Mountain Ash, volunteered to visit the grave of my relatives and provided me with some photos of the marker. Ed, who was an elderly fellow of about 80 years old went to the cemetery with his daughter and other family members. He reported back that the cemetery was not being cared for, and that even though they had a map with gravesites marked they could not find the marker for my relatives. As it turned out, the marker was large and heavy, and at some point had toppled over. For decades the marker just laid on the ground. Over time the ground settled, and the marker began to sink into the earth, and decade after decade the leaves fell over the marker so that it eventually disappeared. But my friend Ed and his family would not be deterred. They returned to the cemetery, this time with a steel rod for probing and sure enough they found the marker. The marker was several inches in the ground and they removed all of the dirt, so you could read the inscription on it. I had sent my Pennsylvania State flag to Ed along with some US flags, and Ed provided flags of Wales and took photos. I wanted to have the Pennsylavina State flag in the photo as there was a link - Thomas John's family would emigrate to the US and reside in a place called Plymouth. At that time, the largest coal producing center in the US, and home to many thousands of Welsh. So while I have never been to Wales - I am proud to be of Welsh descent, especially after receiving so much help from the Mountain Ash Library, and Mr Howell and his family.