| Description | There cannot be any doubt that Evan [ap] John Griffith was son to the new owner of Wern in 1640 (docts. 88-89) and grandson to Griffith ap John the will-maker (87).
The three documents were preserved for generations at Henblas because they were part of the Wern evidences, Wern itself being definitely part of the property of William Evans in 1725, and figuring in the marriage settlement of that year (8). How and when this happened is not at all clear. Was it purchased from the Griffith family between 1676 and (say) 1720 by William Evans or his father? Or did it come to the Evans family by will?
An examination of the Llethrddu table (Pedigrees, 135) brings out the fact that Elin, an unmarried dr. of Griffith ap John ap William when he made his will in 1637 but married later to Robert ap Griffith ap Robert of Llethrddu, was a great-aunt of William Evans, his father being a nephew of hers. All the same, it is indeed difficult, with all the children born to Griffith ap John himself, and remembering that Elin was merely a great-aunt of W.E., that Wern would thus devolve by will upon such a remote collateral descendant.
Note : The Griffith ap Robert [ap] Griffith of Llanaelhaiarn who figures as a debtor in the will of 1637 was no doubt of Llethrddu. But that does not bring us nearer to a solution of the Wern problem.
Further note : It has been taken for granted that the Wern of 1640 (88-89) and the Wern Uchaf of the 1676 doct. (90) were one and the same. It is rather disconcerting to find in certain dispositions of 1803 (285-286) that Wern Ucha is coupled with Bryncroes in the parish of Clynnog, while Wern has an alias Ysgobur Fawr, the two Werns having quite different tenants. |