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I’m Welsh thru my maternal grandfather. Visited there with my family in 1986. Ruggedly beautiful; looked like it was right out of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, and this was LONG before the movies.

I’m 25% Welsh per Ancestry, which I never knew, with 45% Irish, 18% Scottish, 10% English, and 2% Norwegian. So basically 88% Celtic, lol. Gotta add Wales to our family trip to the British Isles in 2 years, which is gonna be awesome!

I have friends and distant relatives living in Wales. My family originally lived in Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn and Ysbyty Ystwyth. Additional connections in Ystrad Meurig and Aberystwyth. Distant relatives at Pontrhydygroes. My friends in Cwmystwyth surprised me on a visit to the National Library of Wales. They found the original document from 1852 where my great grandfather and his sisters were adopted by a member of the family in Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn when their mother died of TB. My great grandfather was 10 at the time. He worked in the lead mines at Ysbyty Ystwyth by day and tended sheep when he was too big for the mines. He emigrated to the US in 1863 by signing on as ship's company in Liverpool. Shortly after arrival, he joined the Union Army and off to the front. Two years in a Confederate POW camp soon followed.