Rhosymedre, Denbighshire, Wales Genealogy

Rhosymedre is a village and ecclesiastical parish in the County Borough of Wrexham in Wales. Today Rhosymedre is in the community of Cefn.

History
The parish of Rhosymedre was created in 1844 from the Ruabon townships of Coed Cristionydd and Cristionydd Cynrig. The parish contains the villages of Cefn Mawr, Cefn Bychan, Acrefair, Newbridge, Plas Madoc and Rhosymedre.

The parish church, St. John the Evangelist, was consecrated on 6 July 1837. However, in 1894 a new chapel of ease, St. Paul's, was built as a chapel of ease in Acrefair.

In 1879, part of the township of Cristionydd Cynrig was transferred to the new parish of Penycae.

The area was formerly heavily industrialised with large deposits of iron, coal and clay. Iron was worked at Acrefair; Cefn Mawr and Plas Madoc. In 1867 Robert Graesser, an industrial chemist from Obermosel in Saxony, Germany established a chemical works at Plas Kynaston in Cefn Mawr to extract paraffin oil and wax from the local shale. This was the start of the long association with the chemical industry. The site was later acquired by the American chemical company Monsanto, their first venture in Europe. Coal was worked throughout the parish and large brickworks existed at Acrefair and Newbridge.

Much of the mineral wealth of the area was exported by canal over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Shropshire Union Canal, until the railway reached Ruabon in 1855.

Census Records
Rhosymedre formed part of the Wrexham Registrar's District.

Church Records
The following Rhosymedre Parish Registers have been deposited at the Denbighshire Records Office in Ruthin:


 * The Clwyd Family History Society have published several volumes of the Rhosymedre parish registers.
 * There are no official records available on the IGI for Rhosymedre parish.

Nonconformist Church Records

 * The following chapel records have been published:

Civil Records
The Registry Office was in High Street, Ruabon. Births, marriages and deaths in Rhosymedre are recorded in the GRO indexes as:

Poor Law Union
The Wrexham Union was created on 30 March 1837 and the parish of Ruabon, and later the parish of Rhosymedre, formed part of this. A workhouse was built at Croesnewydd in Bersham, Wrexham. The records of the Wrexham Union are now held at Denbighshire Record Office in Ruthin.

Cemeteries

 * St. John's Church, Rhosymedre
 * Trefynant Cemetery, Acrefair
 * Capel Seion Cemetery, Cefn Mawr
 * Welsh Baptist Chapel Cemetery, Cefn Bychan