Clynnog Fawr and Brynsiencyn
Robert Jones was born in Clynnog Fawr on 2 July 1876. Robert married Ann Williams of Brynsiencyn on 15 May 1897 in Carnarvon. They settled in Llanidan parish, Anglesey. They had three children: Robert William, born on 22 May 1898; William Owen, born on 15 October 1899; and Hugh, who was christened on 3 August 1902.
The parish of Llanidan
The parish of Llanidan, including the village of Brynsiencyn, is situated along the Menai Strait. The parish church of St Nidan is a 19th-century parish church near the village of Brynsiencyn. Built between 1839 and 1843, it replaced the Old Church of St Nidan, Llanidan, which needed significant repair, but the ruins of which still survive. Some items were moved to the new church, including the 13th-century font, two bells from the 14th and 15th century, and a reliquary reported to hold the remains of St Nidan.
Brynsiencyn today has a few hundred inhabitants with a primary school, the church and a large non-conformist chapel.
Six months
Ann died on 1 December 1902 and Robert was left to bring up their three children alone. Hugh died on 29 April the following year, 1903, shortly followed by Robert junior on 11 May.
On 23 December 1905 Robert remarried Ann Owen of Brynsiencyn at the register office in Carnarvon. On 15 June 1909 they had a son, Robert John Jones. Robert and Ann emigrated to the USA in 1911 with William and Robert John.
On 30 January 1912 they had a daughter, Eunice May. On 14 August 1914 they had a daughter, Doris Evangeline, who died the following 26 January. On 26 June 1919 a son, Arthur Webster Jones, who died on 30 November the same year.
Robert Snr died on 17 September 1921 in Sandy, Utah. William survived his parents and married in 1940. In 1943 they had a son, William Moyle Jones, “little Billy”, who unfortunately did not survive and was buried the following day.
The family
By 1911 the road west was a steamship ticket and a railway timetable, not a sailing ship and an ox team. The Welsh emigration to Utah did not end with the pioneer companies; it thinned into ordinary twentieth-century migration, and this family sits at that join. See the full timeline →
The dates here are unusually precise and read like civil registration and parish entries, which should be cited directly. Two gaps remain: no vessel is recorded for the 1911 crossing, and the family’s connection to the Church — the reason a Welsh family went to Sandy, Utah — is not yet documented. The source describes Robert as being left to raise the children after Ann’s death and once names him “William” at that point, which appears to be a slip for Robert.