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O ble rydychi yn dod? (From where do you come?). Mae fyn heulu dod o Aberystwyth yn Cymru. (My family comes from Aberystwyth in Wales). There is an organization in North America is offers courses in Welsh. Their website can be found here. I corresponded via e-mail for months with Mark Nodine as he crafted a Welsh lexicon. My contribution was to help him make a great tool run lightning fast.

Welsh geneology that goes back further than 1754 becomes challenging. It was in that year that the English forced the Welsh to take surnames. Prior to that time, you needed about 4 generations of patronymic association and typically the name of the house where the family resided.

Welsh is totally phonetic. What you see is what you say. The rules are very simple. The single most difficult sound for native English speakers to master is the "ll" in Welsh. The closest approximation is to run together the sounds of "th" in "think" followed by the letter "L". Pronounce "llan" as "thlan" with a strong aspiration. The Welsh letter "NG" is pronounced just as in the trailing letters of the English word "song". It is nasal. It also makes for interesting search in the dictionary collating order. The Welsh letter "ch" is pronounced in a more gutteral fashion than the German or Scottish (Bach or loch). English speakers get tripped up on words that begin with "ch" as in "chimod". It's pretty easy on a trailing syllable.

Good luck in your linguistic travels.

Prior to that time, you needed about 4 generations of patronymic association and typically the name of the house where the family resided.

Interesting. Perhaps everyone who came from Kidwelly was named Kidwell...? The name showed up on passenger list of boat that left in 1621.

Thanks for the language lesson and links. I hope to have time to explore at depth.