Happy St. David's Day

Yesterday I took a couple of photos of the first daffodils to open in my yard in honor of St. David's Day and my Welsh ancestry. There are at least a hundred more set to bloom all over my yard soon. According to an analysis of my Dad's Y-DNA and mtDNA, I'm from the Haplogroup I1 on my paternal side and Haplogroup U5 on my paternal Nana's side, genes well-represented by those of others with a mid-Wales heritage.

Although we don't know exactly where our paternal ancestors came from, our closest genetic cousins -- of the surname Evans! -- have a paper trail to Montgomeryshire, Wales. Our surname, Lewis, is also seen in the rural mid-Wales region in various combinations with Evans, such as Lewis Evans and Evan Lewis. People with these surnames are frequently seen in the Virginia Chesapeake region. Families related to seafaring trades (sailors, ship and boat builders, lighthouse keepers, harbor pilots, and Merchant Mariners)and watermen from Smith Island as well as the Eastern Shore and Middle and Northern peninsula of the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay share our heritage. (Read a short article here for more on the Welsh and their surnames in America.)

Seventy-five percent of the 17th-century immigrants to Virginia's Chesapeake came as indentured servants. These largely rural and landless folk sought opportunity and a fresh start in the New World, and so indentured themselves or were indentured by others. It's very likely that individuals from mid-Wales took the Severn River to the port of Bristol and from there emigrated to Virginia, where the Chesapeake Bay, with two tributary rivers named Severn, looked an awful lot like home. Those who settled in Mathews County, Virginia, (which was part of Gloucester until 1791 and where my ancestors settled and lived until the mid-twentieth century) found others with Welsh roots, especially around Milford Haven and Gwynn's Island.

So I claim Wales on St. David's Day much as my children claim their paternal Scots-Irish heritage on St. Patrick's Day.

Also, I hail from Gloucester County, Virginia, where the Daffodil is celebrated each spring. An early-twentieth century entrepreneur turned the soil of Gloucester's wild daffodils into an industry. Why were the golden bulbs already growing wild there? Perhaps John Lewis (Haplogroup R1a, so not a relation in a genealogically-significant timeframe) brought the first daffodils, or maybe Gloucester plantsman John Clayton exchanged bulbs with his colleagues in the UK. Perhaps an ancestor of mine was the first to plant a daffodil bulb from the "land of our fathers" in the soil of the "land of the life worth living."