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Wales Cardiff

Guide to Cardiff history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Cardiff (Welsh: Caerdydd) is the capital city of Wales.



HISTORY
Archaeological evidence from sites in and around Cardiff: the St Lythans burial chamber, near Wenvoe (about four miles (6.4 km) west, south west of Cardiff city center); the Tinkinswood burial chamber, near St Nicholas (about six miles (10 km) west of Cardiff city center, the Cae'rarfau Chambered Tomb, Creigiau (about six miles (10 km) north west of Cardiff city center, and the Gwern y Cleppa Long Barrow, near Coedkernew, Newport (about eight and a quarter miles (13.5 km) north east of Cardiff city center, demonstrates that people had settled in the area by at least around 6,000 years ago.

Until the Roman conquest of Britain, Cardiff was part of the territory of the Silures – a Celtic British tribe that flourished in the Iron Age – whose territory included the areas that would become known as Breconshire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan.

Little is known about the fort and civilian settlement in the period between the Roman departure from Britain and the Norman Conquest. The settlement probably shrank in size and may even have been abandoned.

In 1081 William I, King of England, began work on the castle keep within the walls of the old Roman fort. Cardiff Castle has been at the heart of the city ever since.



In 1536, the Act of Union between England and Wales led to the creation of the shire of Glamorgan, and Cardiff was made the county town. It also became part of Kibbor hundred.

In 1793, John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute was born. He would spend his life building the Cardiff docks and would later be called "the creator of modern Cardiff".

King Edward VII granted Cardiff city status on 28 October 1905, and the city acquired a Roman Catholic Cathedral in 1916.

The city was proclaimed capital city of Wales on 20 December 1955, by a written reply by the Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George. Caernarfon had also vied for this title.

LOCATION
Cardiff is built on reclaimed marshland on a bed of Triassic stones; this reclaimed marshland stretches from Chepstow to the Ely Estuary, which is the natural boundary of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. Triassic landscapes of this part of the world are usually shallow and low-lying which accounts and explains the flatness of the center of Cardiff.

Cardiff is bordered to the west by the rural district of the Vale of Glamorgan, also known as The Garden of Cardiff, to the east by the city of Newport, to the north by the South Wales Valleys and to the south by the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel. The River Taff winds through the center of the city and together with the River Ely flows into the freshwater lake of Cardiff Bay. A third river, the Rhymney flows through the east of the city entering directly into the Severn Estuary.

it's location on the Severn estuary makes it an ideal location for a port. Much of the original coal mined in the Rhonda valley was exported through Cardiff port.

RELIGION
Since 1922 Cardiff has included the suburban cathedral 'village' of Llandaff, whose bishop is also Archbishop of Wales since 2002. There is also a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city. Since 1916 Cardiff has been the seat of a Catholic archbishop, but there appears to have been a fall in the estimated Catholic population, with estimated numbers in 2006 being around 25,000 less than in 1980.

The city has two cathedrals. The 12th century Llandaff Cathedral is situated in the district of Llandaff, in west of the city. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is in the city center.

Likewise, the Jewish population of the city also appears to have fallen—there are two synagogues in Cardiff, one in Cyncoed and one in Moira Terrace, as opposed to seven at the turn of the 20th century.[99] There are a significant number of nonconformist chapels, an early-20th century Greek Orthodox church and 11 mosques.

INDUSTRY
As the capital city of Wales, Cardiff is the main engine of growth in the Welsh economy. Though the population of Cardiff is about 10% of the Welsh population, the economy of Cardiff makes up nearly 20% of Welsh GDP and 40% of the city’s workforce are daily in-commuters from the surrounding south Wales area.

Industry has played a major part in Cardiff's development for many centuries. The main catalyst for its transformation from a small town into a big city was the demand for coal required in making iron and later steel, brought to the sea by packhorse from Merthyr Tydfil.

Today, Cardiff is the principal finance and business services center in Wales, and as such there is a strong representation of finance and business services in the local economy. This sector, combined with the Public Administration, Education and Health sectors, have accounted for around 75% of Cardiff's economic growth since 1991.

CEMETERIES AND GRAVEYARDS
Cardiff cemeteries

Find a record in Cardiff

Find a grave

National Welsh Archives

GENEALOGY SOCIETIES
Glamorgan Genealogy Society

Genuki, Glamorgan

Welsh Genealogy research

[[Category:Wales Cities]