The line we can follow furthest back: from a farmer, through two generations of colliers, to a schoolteacher. Everything on this page comes from certificates in the Archive, and every fact links to the document that proves it.
Generation one
Daniel Jenkins the elder
Emlyn's grandfather on his father's side. We know him from a single line: his son's 1907 marriage record, which gives his occupation as farmer. That hints that the Jenkinses, like so many Rhondda families, came in from rural Wales to the coal within a generation.
Evidence1907 marriage
Generation two
Daniel Jenkins
Emlyn's father. Married Elizabeth Perkins in 1907, when he was living at Blaenrhondda. Died at home at 61 Miskin Street aged fifty-two, with Emlyn present. The family remember him as a very kind and gentle man.
Elizabeth "Bessie" Jenkins, née Perkins
Emlyn's mother. House-proud, strict and devout. She was a widow for twenty-three years after Daniel died. She died at Emlyn's house in Treherbert, and left everything equally to her three surviving children.
Generation three
May Jenkins
The eldest child, believed to have died of diphtheria. Died 7 January 1911, aged one year and seven months, buried at Treorchy Cemetery.
Evidence1909 birth1911 memorial card
Emlyn Jenkins
His full story is told across the eight chapters of this site.
Gwenny Jenkins
Trained as a nurse at Hope Hospital, Salford. She was a bridesmaid at Emlyn and Kathleen's wedding in 1934. Bob's parents kept the Farmers Arms at Padgate, Warrington.
Danny Jenkins
One of the three children named in Bessie's will in 1956, so still living then. A local newspaper caught him watching a match with Emlyn at Wilderspool in October 1947, naming him in print as Emlyn's brother, the only sighting of him found in the record so far. His own life beyond that remains unresearched.