ANNALS OF WALES

Though plenty of us have ancestors who hailed from Wales, few and far
between are the books readily available for research and background. A
new reprint could be a treat that, at the least, helps fill in ``local
color.'' At best, it could fill genealogical gaps.

``Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of
Wales'' by Thomas Nicholas was first published in 1872, but it is the
1875 revision of which Genealogical Publishing Company has done a
page-for-page reprint.

This is a wonderful work, full of nicely reprinted engravings of
ancestral homes and village scenes, castles and countryside, coats of
arms and ancestral seals. There are histories and vignettes of all the
shires of Wales, rundowns on major officials, and interesting
summaries of ``old and extinct families.''

Here the book even reports on families that headed west. For example,
in the Old and Extinct Families of Glamorgan, Mr. Nicholas describes
``The Gamage Family in America'' and tells of a group of the family
that came to Virginia with Lord Effingham, ``when he was governor of
Virginia.'' One Capt. John Gamage is quoted as being ``a self-made,
noble-minded man, trusting in Providence, [who] constructed his own
fortune, and engaged heartily and courageously in the great struggle
for American independence.'' Other tidbits, such as the fact that
several Gamages graduated from Harvard and the ``house in which the
family lived at Cambridge is still called `Gamage House','' are
included.

But of then non-extinct families, there is considerably more data.
Arranged by shire, many lineages are offered. Usually, these will be
fairly prominent families within the shire, so the odds are not great
that your ancestor -- especially if he was a coal miner -- is going to
have his family delineated. However, those families that are described
are probably done quite accurately. According to the publisher, ``the
importance [Wales] attaches to genealogy amounts almost to a passion.
There is a very good reason for this ...historically, genealogy among
the Welsh was a necessary element in their law of property. By this
law a man held rank and claimed property by `kin and descent.' He had
to show his lineage through nine generations to be a free Welshman and
a holder of land. Indeed, only a person past the ninth descent could
become the head of a new family.''

But even if your family is not described, Annals and Antiquities still
offers a wealth of information about old Wales, its history, customs,
folklore, nobility, commoners, officials, language, even its geology.
Anyone of Welsh ancestry would enjoy -- even treasure -- this 964-page
set.

The clothbound edition is available from genealogical societies, some
better book stores and libraries, or may be purchased from the
publisher, Genealogical Publishing Company, Dept. SM, 1001 North
Calvert Street, Baltimore, Md., 21202; 1-800-727-6687. The publisher's
price is $75 for the set, plus $3.50 postage and handling. --J.S.

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