Hi,
We have a cemetery here called "Blaen Y Cae"
and on our WWW search, it says it translates to
"Engendi Mach Pelah Blaen Y Cae"

HELP!! :surrender:

All I can get, even tried the translations websites, maybe something like God Speed????

I get too something about mines?

ministers?

Christians?

Thanks all for any kind of help.
😉

Marcia

A litteral translation for Blaen Y Cae is The Front Field.

Welcome stone seller.
Blaen y Cae, mmm.
Blaen can have a number of meaning depending on the context. In its most simple form it means foremost and may be compared with cyntaf or arweiniol.
When combined with say, pen,(pen=, chief, head,end,top) it can mutates to penmain/penmaen and means point or tip (as of nose, not rubbish!). Hence Penmaenmawr (mawr means big/great).
Blaen afon means the upper reaches of a/the river (afon is a river) and Blaen y nant is the upper reaches of a brook.
Cae is a field.
The "foremost field" might seem quite a reasonable translation, as might " the field of upper reaches"
I'm sure others will join in, if only to correct me!
Hope this make sense and helps!
What stone do you sell?
PS You may find www.geiriadur.net of use. It's the on-line dictionary of the Univesity of Wales, Lampeter. Also, be careful, because you may find that you are dealing with 19th century Welsh which can be somewhat different to modern Welsh.

Hi, whereabouts is the cemetary called 'Blaen y Cae'? What names and dates are there on the gravestones?
There were many Welsh settlements in USA in the old days, many from North Wales went to work in the slate mines somewhere nr New York and other places.

---

Welsh shares 70% of it's language with Cornish.

I can tell you with out hesitation or error it means:-

"Don't sell my gravestone, boyo"

Stone Seller,
If this is Fox Lake, Dodge, Wisconsin there are some amazing coincidences going on!! Who told you to post on Aditnow? If it is Fox Lake and you want to know more, please give me a PM. as I suspect the subject matter is a bit beyond the remit of Aditnow!
Gwyn.

Wow, you are all so fast with replies. With Much Gratitude I present this Thank You to each of you.

The Cemetery is in North Central Wisconsin (North of Madison about an hour, give or take pending on the weight of the lead in your right foot), in North Central U.S.

As for dates on the stones...I honestly can not say. I just started selling stones and found this in my search for all the cemeteries in my selling district. I am searching each cem. to find out lot sizes, any regulations on sizes of stones, who digs the lot, any fees that would need to be handled by us and transferred to the family...

I am into "double" meanings of things and was curious about the Welsh terminology. Think some of it is in my blood somewhere as I find myself "looking into" things and love to hear stories.

There are no mines near here but do have a granite quarry about 45 minutes from where the cemetery is, so I don' t think that is a connection. Just maybe a settlement that happened as they were traveling west across the US and a resting place along the way for all travelers??? My thoughts.

Anyhoo.

Sunshine & Smiles
to all


Marcia

Gwyn,

as this is a work thing, I will present my work e-m
amportage1 (at) verizon.net I don't want to start up a PM here, no sense in taking up thier space for real "mining" things...

As for finding aditnow, I was trying to do a translation out on the web and thought I'd check out some sites that came up...the Aditnow came along/stone and thought someone just may have a clue.

e-m me...fill me in. 😎 ;D

~M


[tweak]I have edited to email address to prevent it being harvested and enabled access to the Private Messaging system for you :)

- Vanoord[/tweak]

Amazing!
My Father studied this graveyard several times when he was alive and on sabbaticals in Madison.
Amazing!

I'm not sure amazing quite covers it Gwyn.

---

Fascinating stuff!

Am I correct in thinking that this graveyard is occupied by settlers from Greater Deiniolen?!



Despite this being a little off-topic for the site, I'd be interested to learn more. 🙂

---

They came from Blaen-y-cae-uchaf and Blaen Cae Isaf.
SH573641 and SH568643 respectively.
The land was divided up using the Platt Plan. Having got there, some gained good land, some barren rock, some even marsh. It was a gamble and it didn't work for these poor souls. Thus, there in the middle of the vast Wisconsin prairie is this small graveyard.
I'm on the case, although my initial feelings were that this is not quite Aditnow material.
I'm still spooked by some of the coincidences!

The family was the Roberts's. I've located alot of photographs and paper work, as well as copies of the Platt Plans. Sounds of stacks opening, smell of old paper... and as if this office wasn't awash with enough of that sort of thing. Please give me a few days, there is quite a volume of material to go through.
Edit. It's Plat not Platt. Sorry for any confusion if caused.
For those that might have an interest see:-
digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SurveyNotes/
Also, Google search Blaen y Cae, Wisconsin.
As Vanoord has noted this is rather off the subject for Aditnow but gives some keen and fascinating insights into the social conditions of the time, both in Caernarfonshire (as was) and USA.

The Roberts's did ok, I'm happy to report.
I've put some photographs into my personal album for those that might be interested. Using Welsh diaspora as a search term should also find them.
My best wishes and regards to Fox Lake. Gwyn.

Interesting thread here, i live at Blaen Cae Isaf which was forementioned earlier in the thread. If anyone on any side of the Atlantic has any help in tracing the Roberts' in Wisconsin please let me know as it is of great interestt not only to me but also the herritage of the farm in which we inhabit.

We have digital photographs of the old cow shed used as a chapel before the Roberts emigrated to Wisconsin. Were not related to the Roberts only that we reside at Blaen Cae Isaf and have a keen historical interest in their story. Feel free to [tweak]send a personal message[/tweak]

R:E As regards the cow shed known by our family as the old chapel, we believe it's use pre-dates 1844. It was used for sunday school and a place of religious gathering by the Roberts family and neighbourhood prior to their emgiration. The school was held in the farmhouse in the winter and in the cow shed in summer. It was the only sunday school in the Llanddeiniolen Parish.

This info was obtained from y book by Daniel Williams, Bancroft, Iowa 1894.

The building is still in existence but in poor repair. Members from Sain Ffagan have visited the site, but unfortunately a similar cow shed from Waunfawr had previously been chosen for relocation at the museum.

We have wondered why the Roberts family emigrated. Maybe the Enclosures Act played a part in this.

We're probably working on the same vein , Aneurin!
I've got back to 1776 and the "first" Robert Roberts.
The best/earliest I can come up with for the school is 1808 which, as you point out, was on the farm. However, it appears that the Roberts's went on to build "Ysgoldu", this was not on the farm but its location seems a bit of a mystery..it may have become one of the chapels.
I don't think that the majority of site users will/do regard this topic we're working on as site relevant, although census returns indicate that various family members probably worked in nearby quarries... :offtopic:
Land enclosure, Corn Laws, new taxes, religious schism and a growing population played a major part.

Could always keep it on topic Gwyn by adding that By 1850 there were over 7,000 Welsh miners were employed in south-western Wisconsin. Two villages in this region were named Wales (Wakesha County) and Cambria (Columbia County).
😉

---

Thanks, Carnkie :thumbup:
I do feel, however, that what I'm working on, in this particular case, is not totally on-topic for Aditnow.
It is, however, a very powerful exemplar of the social conditions of the times, which slowly, but irrevocably, became the base for the ensueing polarisation and troubles.

Aneurun, you may be interested in :-
Byd Go Iawn
Un Nos Ola Leuad J. Elwyn Hughes
Cyhoeddiadau Barddas ISBN 978-1-900437-99-8

I knew a Jones-Roberts how helped dig the Mersey Tunnel! I believe the family came from Angelsey but latterly Dorset. Although many may think this 'off topic' keep going because it throws a light on how the mining community spread worldwide over the years and may involve my family Powell. Regards, Hairyjon 🙂