Discover your Welsh relatives by exploring thousands of baptism records from the historic county of Breconshire. Baptism records are a valuable resource for your family tree. You will discover your ancestor’s address, parents’ names and baptism date.
Discover your Welsh relatives by exploring thousands of baptism records from the historic county of Breconshire. Baptism records are a valuable resource for your family tree. You will discover your ancestor’s address, parents’ names and baptism date.
The Breconshire Baptisms include both a transcript of the original records and an image of the record book. The detail in each record can deviate because the amount of details recorded in baptism records has changed throughout the centuries. Also, the legibility of some records may be poor. Most transcripts will include a combination of the following information.
Name
Baptism date
Birth date
Mother’s name
Father’s name
Place
County and country
You will often find additional information by viewing the image of the record. Some of the details you can discover are:
Abode (Residence)
Trade of profession – in most cases refers to the child’s father
Who performed the ceremony*
*It can be valuable to record the name of the person who performed the ceremony you find in records. In some families, the officiant may be a family friend or even a relative and by recording the name you may find a trend further in your family history research.
Breconshire, also known as Brecknockshire, is one of 13 historic Welsh counties and a former administrative county. Breconshire borders Radnorshire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, Carmarthenshire, and Cardiganshire.
Following the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county of Brecknock was abolished in 1974. Most of its area became part of the new county of Powys, where it was turned into the Borough of Brecknock. Powys also contained two other districts: Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire. In 1996, Powys was turned into a unitary authority, and a ‘Brecknockshire’ area was established under a decentralisation scheme. A shire committee made up of councillors elected for electoral divisions within the former Borough of Brecknockshire carried out functions delegated by Powys County Council.
The Breconshire Baptisms includes records which use the patronymic naming system. This system started in Wales in the 15th century through to the mid-18th century. It is the practice of using the father’s first name as the child’s surname. Usually, ‘ab’ or ‘ap’ is added between the child’s first name and the father’s first name. For example, William Ap David is William son of David. The patronymic naming system can affect your genealogical research. We would recommend searching by your relative’s first name and birth year without the family’s surname. Then narrow your search from those results