POWYS-L Archives

Archiver > POWYS > 2005-03 > 1110097041


From: Anthony Francis <>
Subject: Re: [POWYS] Ashton - deafness + Williams
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 00:20:35 -0800
In-Reply-To: <6f0e1bcd0502280400539d6b18@mail.gmail.com>


Hi Alison,
I'm pleased that you've found Gwyneth Davies of Bridgenorth's study so
interesting. She put ever so much into it.
Regarding the disabled family of Ashton's, I feel sure that there was
much medical interest at the time regarding the genetics problems caused by
a marriage between first cousins and wonder if the two Ashton doctors,
Dr.Joseph of Carno and Dr.John Caradoc of Machynlleth, did any studies in
their day. If you feel the need to study the genetics further, you might
like to look into the ancestry of Dr. Joseph Ashton. I understand that many
families had marriages between first cousins in those days but only a few
suffered a genetic catastrophe.
I did wonder if the pollution in their drinking water might have affected
their nervous systems, as has been discovered in the last 40 years, but
then it seems that few, if any, of their neighbours were similarly
affected. It might have been a combination of these factors that hit the
family - perhaps a weakening of their immune systems by pollution at the
same time as some particularly nasty virus was visiting the area. This sort
of thing might happen to anyone, as I have discovered.
Loaned an old house jumping with fleas, I had the place sprayed with
insecticide several times on weekends while we were away travelling. Within
weeks I got a bad throat that was going around and this soon spread into my
ears and later my eyes, deafening me for a month or two and then partially
blinding me. It took 12 months to discover it was a common virus, which
probably got in while my immune system was weakened by insecticides and
over-tiredness from work & travel. If modern science has trouble
determining these things, think how difficult it must have been 200 years
ago.
I'm struggling to catch up on my mail here. Please have patience.
Cheers, Tony

--------------------------------------------
>Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:00:09 +0000
>From: Alison Bryan <>
>Subject: [POWYS] Ashton - deafness + Williams
>X-Mailing-List: <> archive/latest/14778
>Tony and everyone else who is waiting for an e mail reply from me,
>just wanted to let you know I'm not ignoring you, just slowly catching
>up. If I've not replied by mid week, please remind me as my inbox
>currently looks like a bomb has hit it, and it will have got 'lost'.
>
>Anyway, what I wanted to say. I received my back issues of Croncil
>Powys this morning, and I've only skim read it (not placed the
>connections yet) and made 2 discoveries:
>
>a) Amongst the Ashtons, Gwynneth starts documenting my grandfather's
>family, the Williamses from earlier generations! Its the Williamses
>at Nantyderw, I was asking about on this list a few weeks ago.
>
>My grandfather, a Williams, married Maglona Ashton the great
>granddaughter of that problematic Thomas.
>
>Gwynneth starts talking about Cwmpark, which is a new one for me.
>
>b) Deafness, the fact that more than one person is recorded as Deaf,
>indicates hereditary deafness within the Ashton family. There is no
>direct ancestor connection for me, but I find it extremely interesting
>anyway and in fact its bowled me over.
>
>I'm actually profoundly deaf, which incidentally is unexplained. One
>of the reasons I pursued family history research so actively recently,
>is that I really wanted something to take me away from Deaf politics,
>now there's no getting away from it .... looks like I've come a full
>circle! I would like to do a bit more reseach on these people, and I
>can easily put it in the context of Deaf education / history, being a
>subject I'm too familiar with.
>
>What I would like to know, is there any other people descending from
>the Ashtons that people know about, that are actually Deaf? By this I
>mean born deaf, or became deaf within childhood, as opposed to age
>related deafness in later years. It would also be a bonus, in terms
>of my interest levels, if these people could sign too.
>
>Alison



This thread: