North to South

From north to south, the Celtic tribal groups that formed the major part of our JONES DNA were the Deceangli, the Ordovices, the Cornovii, the Demetae, and the Silures. For my particular JONES family it would prove to be the Cornovii, Deceangli, and Ordovicies, that made most of the family tree. Always fighting among themselves, and between each other, they produced an extensive network of family fortifications, called hill-forts. These hill-forts were scattered all along the landscape, varying in size from just a few acres, to forts containing more than 15 acres. They most likely started as fortified family farms and were added onto generation by generation. My Jones family's area of the world yet to come, was dotted with the largest and most impressive. The heart of this land was centered around one fort called "Oswestry Old Fort". It guarded the land access route between the rich lands of the middle Severn valley, and the grazing land of the uplands. It also must have served as a central trading post and animal management center, for to go from the lowlands to the uplands, you would have to cross this narrow strip of land. What a deal. Fight, fight, and more fighting was the name of survival. Perhaps for my family, trade, trade, and more trading was the name of survival. It would appear that my Jones family would live to fight another day, or trade to live another day, or perhaps a little of both.

Empire Without Limit

The Latin writers who were to arrive on our island between 55 B.C. and 84 A.D., [the conquest of northern Britain and Wales was completed in 84 A.D.], had the following mindset: according to Virgil, Jupiter himself decrees,

"I set upon the Romans bounds neither of space nor of time:
I have bestowed on them empire without limit."

These Latin writers describe a Celtic culture divided geographically. They named multiple social groups, scattered about the island. We have come to call these "tribes". The tribal groups that came to occupy that part of the island from which our JONES surname originates are five in number. The Cornovii centered its land around the land bridge between the head waters of the Dee and Severn. At one point they were thought to have occupied what was to become present day Shropshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, the Clwyd valley and eastern Powys. The Deceangli occupied the northern coastal area being the extreme north of our JONES family land. The Ordovices claimed what was to become Gwynedd. The Demetae spread over what was to become Dyfed. Finally, the Silures were settled in what was to become Galmorgan and Gwent. Within these five Celtic tribal groups our JONES surname was hidden. It would take another 500 years before the tribes that survived the "empire without limit" would be identified as "Walas".