User:Lionelfullwood/Sandbox5

Wales Swansea (city)

Guide to Swansea(city) history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



HISTORY
Swansea (/ˈswɒnzi/ SWON-zee; Welsh: Abertawe [abɛrˈtauɛ], "mouth of the Tawe"), officially known as the City and County of Swansea, is a coastal city and county in Wales.

Archaeological finds are mostly confined to the Gower Peninsula, and include items from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. The Romans reached the area, as did the Norsemen. Swansea is thought to have developed as a Viking trading post.

The earliest known form of the modern name is Sweynesse, which was used in the first charter granted sometime between 1158 and 1184 by William de Newburgh, 3rd Earl of Warwick. The charter gave Swansea the status of a borough, granting the townsmen, called burgesses certain rights to develop the area. A second charter was granted in 1215 by King John. In this charter, the name appears as Sweyneshe. The town seal which is believed to date from this period names the town as Sweyse.

The port of Swansea initially traded in wine, hides, wool, cloth and later in coal. The coal was brought down by wagon, and later by train, from the Ebbw valley.

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the combination of port, local coal, and trading links with the West Country, Cornwall and Devon, meant that Swansea was the logical place to site copper smelting works. Smelters were operating by 1720 and proliferated. The Swansea smelters became so adept at recovering gold and silver from complex ores that in the 1800s they received ore concentrates from the United States, for example from Arizona in the 1850s, and Colorado in the 1860s.

Through the 20th century, heavy industries in the town declined, leaving the Lower Swansea Valley filled with derelict works and mounds of waste products from them. The Lower Swansea Valley Scheme (which still continues) reclaimed much of the land. The present Enterprise Zone was the result and, of the many original docks, only those outside the city continue to work as docks; North Dock is now Parc Tawe and South Dock became the Marina.

RELIGION
Religion was at the heart of life in medieval times, so much so that many churches were enlarged or rebuilt to hold larger congregations; one of the great town churches being St. Mary's in Nottingham. Other than the great houses of the nobility, English stonemasons and woodcarvers practiced their trade on churches, and Nottingham was no exception.

In the late 1500's a religious movement began in North Nottinghamshire that was to shake the world. In the villages of Babworth and Scrooby a group of religious thinkers began to formulate new religious (nonconformist) ideas. They became known as the Pilgrim Fathers and eventually sailed to New England in 1620 on the Mayflower.

Nottingham itself was the birthplace of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. He was born in Notintone Place, Sneinton, a suburb of the city. The Salvation Army now works throughout the world.

ECONOMY
As noted above, Nottingham was the center of the Lace Industry in England in the middle ages. The city was also famous for its woolens.

Bicycle manufacturing was a major industry, the city being the birthplace of Raleigh Cycles in 1886, later joined by Sturmey-Archer, the developer of three-speed hub gears. This business has declined with the advent of cheaper products from Taiwan and China.

Nottingham is now home to the headquarters of several companies, and the UK of other multinationals. Best known in the UK is Boots the Chemists (now Alliance Boots). Other large companies include Chinook Sciences, GM (cricket bats), Pedigree pet food company, American clothing VF Cooperation, Chinese-made automobiles Changan, the credit reference agency Experian, the energy company E.ON UK, the tobacco company Imperial Tobacco, the betting company Gala Group, the amusement and gambling-machine manufacturer Bell-Fruit-Games, the engineering company Siemens, the sportswear manufacturers Speedo, the high-street opticians Vision Express and Specsavers, the games and publishing company Games Workshop.

CIVIL REGISTRATION
Birth, marriages and deaths records have been kept by government since July 1837 to the present day. Prior to that, local parishes of the Church of England, and local branches of other faiths were the only repositories of this information. There are several locations for BMD records for Salisbury. These follow:


 * Ancestry.com


 * Free BMD org UK


 * [http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/county/nottinghamshire/parish_records/ UKBMD

org, Nottinghamshire]


 * genuki Nottinghamshire

CENSUS RECORDS
Census records for Nottingham can be found using the following links:


 * UK census records


 * Findmypast


 * Ancestry.com UK census

PROBATE RECORDS
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by several locations for Nottingham. Please follow the links below:


 * Nottinghamshire county records


 * UKBMD Nottinghamshire wills


 * Genuki Probate records

CEMETERIES AND GRAVES
The links to information on cemeteries for Nottingham follow:


 * Nottingham City listings


 * Findagrave Nottingham Road cemetery


 * Findagrave Nottingham Church cemetery


 * Basford cemetery

GENEALOGY SOCIETIES AND GENEALOGY

 * Nottinghamshire FHS


 * Nottinghamshire Ancestry


 * Findmypast Nottinghamshire


 * Nottingham City FHS