Please help me determine the standardized place of death for John JAMES 1786–1834 • KJ54-FLT. Pro

2008 rj

Please help me determine the standardized place of death for John JAMES 1786–1834 • KJ54-FLT. Providing copy of newspaper describing details of his death and death place.

DEATH: 11 January 1834; Cambrian F55 DISASTERS AND ACCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, DROWNINGS 11 January 1834 MR JOHN JAMES, OF LLETY BRONGI, CHIEF CONSTABLE, DROWNS IN THE LLYNFI;

copy purchased April 2006 by Ruth Ann Bagley and Karen Kendick

via webpage at http://www2.swansea.gov.uk/_info/cambrian/;

EXTRACT:

DEATHS BY DROWNING - On the night of Monday last, Mr. John James, of Lety Brongi, one of the Chief Constables of the Hundred of Newcastle, in this county, was drowned in the Llynfi river, near a bridge called Pont-rhyd-y-Keefe. He had been attending the funeral of a neighbouring farmer, at Llangonoyd, and had stayed drinking at a public house there to rather a late hour, when upon his journey homewards in the dark, he fell in the river. It is supposed that he fell off his horse when crossing the bridge, which is of wood.

COMMENT:

www.streetmap.co.uk <http://www.streetmap.co.uk&gt; has map listing above locations with the following spelling variations:

Llety Brongi  vs  Lletty Brongu

Llynfi River  (appears same on map)

Pont-rhyd-y-Keefe  vs  Pont Rhyd-y-cyff

Llangonoyd vs Llangynwyd.

Adrian Bruce1

Well, you've done most of the work yourself - taking Pont Rhyd-y-cyff off your list, you can go to something like Google Maps or Bing Maps and search for Pont Rhyd-y-cyff.

 

Bing Maps comes up with somewhere called Pont Rhyd-y-cyff, Bridgend - doesn't mean it's yours yet, but if we look at the map, we see a bridge over the Llynfi; and Llangynwyd is just down that lane from the bridge, so basically that matches on 3 places from your story and really has to be the place.

 

If you then go to FamilySearch Places and search for the same Pont Rhyd-y-cyff, we get a place that's in Bridgend today, previously Mid-Glamorgan and Glamorgan.

 

Is it the same place that Bing Maps has? The current place-name is Pont Rhyd-y-cyff, Bridgend, Wales, United Kingdom, which sounds promising but I'm always a bit wary of Welsh place-names - too many Llanfairs and Pont-Newydds in the same area... What you need to do is zoom in on the map that FamilySearch Places has for its Pont Rhyd-y-cyff, and you will swiftly see that the FamilySearch Pont Rhyd-y-cyff points to the same places on its map as Bing's Pont Rhyd-y-cyff, which we'd previously decided was the one that we want. So it's the right one and the standard name for 1834 is:-

 

Pont Rhyd-y-cyff, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom

 

If it were me, I'd add in somewhere that the exact spot was the bridge over the Afon (River) Llynfi.

 

PS - so far as I know, you'd have been better off raising this on a group for Wales or the British Isles - this one is really for getting the right places into the standard lists, rather than using them. I just happened to see this and accepted the challenge, so to speak.

2008 rj

Thank you for taking the time to assist!