The Welsh Diaspora - Analysis of the geography of Welsh names

[Treffie]

1 : Objective of the project

The purpose of the project summarised in this report is to improve the ability of the Welsh Assembly to identify the location of the overseas Welsh community within the English speaking world.

In particular the project seeks to identify the level of concentration of people of Welsh origins in England, Scotland, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. It also seeks to enable the Welsh Assembly to identify where within these countries people of Welsh origin are most likely to be found.

The project also supplies the Assembly with a list of personal and family names most strongly associated with the Welsh community, together with a measure of the strength of that association. This list will enable the Assembly to select from population registers those individuals whose names are most likely to be of Welsh origin.

Estimated size of Welsh diaspora

......................Population 2006...% Welsh ancestry...Total Welsh ancestry

Wales..................2.93 million.............34.9..................1.013 million
Rest of UK...........57.35 million..............5.3..................3.038 mill
USA..................296.50 million..............3.8.................11.267 mill
Australia.............20.45 million...............4.1..................0.839 mill
New Zealand.........2.93 million...............4.7..................0.136 mill
.................................................. ..........................16.293 mill

Source (http://wales.gov.uk/firstminister/research/economic/completed/placenames/analysisgeographywelshnames.pdf?lang=en)

[Tooting Carmen]

Interesting

[Creoda]

Maybe 5% of Australians have some Welsh ancestry, and up to 10% of Anglo-Celtic Australians. Estimating the level of distinct Welsh ancestry outside of the UK would be nigh on impossible though.

Interestingly Wikipedia says Welsh is the 5th largest British Isles ancestry in Australia, even behind Cornish.

[Tooting Carmen]

Maybe 5% of Australians have some Welsh ancestry, and up to 10% of Anglo-Celtic Australians. Estimating the level of distinct Welsh ancestry outside of the UK would be nigh on impossible though.

Interestingly Wikipedia says Welsh is the 5th largest British Isles ancestry in Australia, even behind Cornish.

Because ironically, for much of its recent history Wales was actually quite prosperous due to its mining and manufacturing industries and, if anything, was a net importer of migrants - principally from England, Ireland, Poland, Spain and Italy.

[Creoda]

Because ironically, for much of its recent history Wales was actually quite prosperous due to its mining and manufacturing industries and, if anything, was a net importer of migrants - principally from England, Ireland, Poland, Spain and Italy.
Well, also the fact that Wales is quite rural and didn't have the same population explosion of England, Ireland and Scotland, nor that many Catholics.

[Tooting Carmen]

Well, also the fact that Wales is quite rural and didn't have the same population explosion of England, Ireland and Scotland, nor that many Catholics.

It's actually less rural and more densely populated than both Scotland and Ireland.

[Tenma de Pegasus]

Argentina???

[Creoda]

It's actually less rural and more densely populated than both Scotland and Ireland.
Right, but the population of Ireland in the 1840s was c. 8 million, and Wales never had a city like Glasgow, or an urban belt as populated as Central Scotland, where most immigrants came from.