Aled Llion Jones

...de la MetroWest Daily News:

…People with Welsh heritage have played a long and integral part in the region's history - their names grace everything from Harvard University to towns like Swansea - and it's a chapter that often is overlooked, says Harvard scholar Aled Llion Jones.

Jones seeks anyone with background from Wales or just an interest in its culture to help him piece together the story of Welsh contributions to New England. He also hopes to establish stronger ties between the U.S. and Wales today.…

…Today, many Americans might be hard-pressed to find Wales on a map. Probably fewer have heard its native language, with its sometimes intimidating abundance of consonants and absence of vowels…

… It's clear that compared to millions of Irish, far fewer Welsh emigrated here in the 18th and 19th centuries, he said. Though some forged a fiercely independent subculture that went on to publish literature and history in the Welsh language, many others were comfortable in early, heavily Protestant America, he said…