| Notes |
National Burial Index for England & Wales Transcription
First Name Edward
Last Name Mordecai
Burial Day 24
Burial Month 5
Burial Year 1715
Age -
Place Llansamlet
County Glamorganshire
Country Wales
Extended Information -
Church Denomination Anglican
Church Description St. Samlet
Record set National Burial Index for England & Wales
Category Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers)
Record collection Deaths & burials
Collections from United Kingdom
1. Extracted from my MORDECAI webpage: http://creativegraces.net/genindex/mordecai.html. All linked MORDECAI and MORT families to my own branch are integrated as part of the "CreativeGraces.net" Ancestry tree.
Thanks to Caryl Jones for input to this initial thoughts on the history of the family:
Families may have originated from 3 brothers around 1800 in Bridgend, Coychurch, Llangan, Treos, spreading to Cowbridge and Cardiff. C19th families seem to be concentrated in three areas: Cardiff, Margam/Taibach & Swansea. Each follows the same naming pattern and changed their names about the same time. One story is that they took the name MORDECAI. MORT was used before, alongside or as an alias at times. The reason for this change is not clear. These original males were weavers and small farmers. Often moving from farm to farm in Glamorgan.
A more likely explanation is the name changing to MORT in the late C18th/early C19th (as few retained the name MORDECAI by the time UK General Registration was up and running from 1837 and often given as an alias with both names interchangable). Following the Welsh naming convention of X ap Y, or the X (the son of) Y, this meant that the "family name" changed with every generation. After this time, last names were standardised. So, for example, Morris ap Jenkin's son Mordecai (ap Morris) would have children "ap Mordecai". Future generations would then continue with MORDECAI as the surname when more modern conventions were adopted. It is suggested that the impetus to change to MORT may have been due to some local anti-Jewish sentiments at the time, and having an apparent Jewish surname may have caused the family problems. What is clear is that it affected all branches of the family who most likely share a common root.
2. Thanks to Christopher Hill for input to the discussion (extracted from an email communication August 2013):
"The Three brothers from the Treos area c1800 were actually Edward Mordecai's sons. Hopkin and Llewellan would have been Edward's Brother's or possibly Cousins all originally from the Neath area. I've placed them as brothers in my tree because no other family named Mordecai exists in the Neath / Pontardawe area, that I have yet found, and there is a tradition of Hopkin/Popkin names I couldn't ignore in the family.
The Vale of Glamorgan was sparsely populated until the coming of industrialisation, weaving being one of the first vocations to replace people with machines on a grand scale. It's easy to see how a family of weavers would work their way south toward Llanblethian / Cowbridge where that industry was centered. The factual connection to the Neath area is related to a single Marriage record that lists a Edward Mordecai of Neath marrying a Gwenllian Jenkins of Llangiwg. I then have a document that lists Gwenllian John as receiving a pension from the church and supplemented by her three sons, which lines up with the tree records. Jenkins is an Anglicized version of "ferch John". I further have a Letter from the 1930's that puts Gwenllian Popkin married to a wealthy Jew named Edward Mordecai in Treoes I expect that the Popkin tie is a Victorian fiction - an annoying parlour contrivance of assimilating stub family trees, usually with ties to royalty as the Popkins are. Unfortunately Thomas Popkin of Fforest had no daughters legitimate or otherwise, and the line died out in the mid 1700s (from "Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales" by Thomas Nicholas)
Given that Edward's first son is named Thomas, it matched with tradition of father or Grandfather's name to First Born, with Brother's names to subsequent sons. Certainly the macro patterns line up. It's tenuous at best but with the dearth of records and the last name issues in Victorian Wales and earlier, it is difficult going. Mordecai as a last name becomes a razor thin line that leads backwards in time through Swansea/Abertawe and then North to "Just south of Anglesey" stopping in around 1650 with Lewis Mordecai, a weaver, a mere 30 years after the edict of Expulsion was lifted by Cromwell and Jews were legally allowed back into England. Certainly the Narrative is internally consistent, with Jewish Last names, Jewish Vocations, self association to Jews in the early 1930's and a timeline that matches the sociopolitical situation of the time, not to mention the rise of industrialization. If I'm right, the trail likely continues in Ireland, something I haven't gotten around to looking at yet."
(Source: Mark Grace, August 2013)
I've been able to trace Mordecai as a last name in wales into the 17th century, but much farther north, in Gwenydd. Being that Edward Mordecai was presumably a weaver, as all his sons were, I found the following article of note, from http://www.doctor.gp/felenrhyd/mordecai.htm
I am presuming that either a brother or cousin of John Mordecai may have been a link that moved to glamorgan for some reason. Glamorgan was fairly sparsely populated until the industrial revolution it's possible the family emmigrated sometime around the 1650's or early 1700's
FelRh06818.07.2002 D1
23.07.2002 E2/3/4
According to the Book of Esther, Mordecai was Queen Esther’s uncle , her adopted father and a Jew. He was to become the powerful second in command of the king of Persia and saved the Jews from persecution.! Our, not so ancient ancestors, Mordecais, of Llanfrothen, whom we address here, were from a more humble back ground; weavers by trade.
First, we quote and translate Bob Owen, Croesor; secondly, we try and analyse the structure of the Mordecai family tree; thirdly, we list nearly 60 extracts from the Llanfrothen parish records and fourthly we type the will* of Anne Tudor and Lewis Jones
This is what Bob Owen, Croesor had to say in his book*, Diwydiannau Coll (p58/59) about Lewis John Mordecai and his immediate descendants:-
“The trade of weaving remained in one family for many years and generations and in our district. we have more than once seen evidence of at least four generations living on this one trade. For example:-At Tyddyn Gwyn, Llanfrothen on the slopes of the Moelwyn, below the old Roman road from Tanybwlch to Aberglaslyn, (Lewis) John Mordecai carried on the trade of weaving circa.1670.(see chart - note a) (today, old Tyddyn Gwyn is a ruin, but the new house is occupied).
In 1695,John Mordecai and Lewis Mordecai, his brother, were busy weaving (b).
John Mordecai brought up four sons in the same trade, viz, (c)
1. Lewis John Mordecai
2. John John Mordecai
3. Mordecai John
4. Robert John Mordecai
We have Lewis John Mordecai keeping his business going through his three sons (d)
• Edward Lewis
• William Lewis
• John Lewis
There is an account of John Mordecai of Tyddyn gwyn weaving for the local squire, ca. 1695-1722- helped by his three sons (e)
From the account book of Brondanw we have :-
Sept 17,1722 paid John Mordecai for weaving Fflannen, Blanketts and cloth, 12/0, (f).
In 1720 we have a references; to John John Mordecai as a weaver; in 1721 Robert John Mordecai and (g something inconsistent here) either Lewis Mordecai or Lewis John Mordecai
Making a living by the trade for the years 1745 until his death in 1763.(h) After the death of John Mordecai the trade was carried on at Tyddyn gwyn by Edward Lewis and in the second book of Brondanw we have the following statement:-
1773 There is like wise left unused 19 1/2yards (j) on account of the Blanketts that was weaved for me by Tyddyn Gwyn weaver-1 piece was 49 yards, the other was 28 yards.
By 1786, Edward had moved to Beudy’r garreg, nearer to Traeth Mawr (the beach) to weave. (k) He died at Cefn Cyffin in 1793 (l)
John Lewis, his brother, married and went to live and weave at Caeglas Croesor
From 1776 until the beginning of the next century. In 1781 he carried the same trade at Ty Newydd Caeglas. (here at Ty Newydd Caeglas Griffith Davies was born in 1816 and also his father, David Williams,-son of WL-. died in 1821)
William Lewis, the other brother, lived at Hafoty and Traean from 1775 to 1810- he also weaved (m). He was a founder member of Methodism and the Sunday school in the parish of Llanfrothen.. He was the great grandfather of Bryfdir,the late Rev D.D.Williams MA Liverpool ,a grandfather to Glaslyn and great grandfather to Ap Glaslyn ( end of quotation. ).see Ref FelRh 064 William Lewis was also a grandfather of Griffith Davies (1). ( See Ref FelRh012
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Abt 1680 - 1715 (~ 35 years)