When John Sylvanus Davis was born on 7 January 1822, in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales, United Kingdom, his father, James Sylvanus, was 32 and his mother, Anne Davies, was 40. He married Elizabeth Phillips on 30 December 1850, in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom. They were the parents of at least 1 daughter. He lived in St Peter Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales, United Kingdom in 1841 and Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales in 1851. He died on 11 June 1882, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States, at the age of 60, and was buried in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.
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Rugby Football 'invented' at Rugby School.
Sparked by a depression that was going through Wales the previous three years, the Merthyr uprisings were carried out by workers that were in debt. In the process, twenty-four people were killed and twenty-six were arrested. Troops were brought in to stop the protestors.
Dickens A Christmas Carol was first published.
English and Welsh: patronymic meaning ‘Dafydd's (son)’, equivalent to Welsh ap Dafydd, the Welsh form of David . The spelling Davis is more typical in southwestern England northwards as far as Lancashire, where the frequency of the surname largely reflects Welsh migration, but may sometimes represent a native English surname based on Davy (compare Davies ). Davis (including in the sense 2 below) is the eighth most frequent surname in the US. It is also very common among African Americans.
Irish and Scottish: adopted for Gaelic Mac Daibhéid ‘son of David’; see McDevitt . Compare Davies .
History: John Davis or Davys (c. 1550–1605) was an English navigator who searched for the Northwest Passage. — By the 18th century there were numerous persons named Davis in America, including the jurist John Davis, born in 1761 in Plymouth, MA, and Henry Davis, a clergyman and college president, who was born in 1771 in East Hampton, NY. — Jefferson Davis, born in 1808 in KY, was president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
Possible Related NamesDetails of the chapel where John Silvanus Davis was christened can be found at: https://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/6232/details/heol-awst-welsh-independent-chapel-on-lammas-street-carmarthen James SI …
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