In the beginning
The start is lost in time - the name Gedrych is undeniably and categorically Welsh, from Glamorgan and South Wales. However that is as far as the categorics go. From here on in it is speculation. There is the likelihood (debatable) that the name derives from an early Welsh lord - recorded in the Mathew family tree as being one Cedrych - around the beginning of the 11th century. Various people have pointed also to Ifor Gedrych (or Cedrych) a Welsh lord based in Senghenydd in the 12th century. Then there is a gap in my knowledge until around 1690 when Evan Gedrych appears.
This doesn't mean that the present family is descended from Welsh kings, just that someone of the family adopted or was baptised Gedrych prior to the 17th century and the name became the patrynomic (male family name) after that time. (see JB Davies for a treatise on Welsh surnames.)

In spite of being mostly associated with the farming area around Llandaff there are echoes further west with a place name Dyffryn Ceidrych just off the A4069 south of Llangadog, close to the village of Bethlehem, if any of you want to track it down. (map)
We also appear in gazetteers in the form of Gwern-y-Gedrych, a farm just north of the village of Peterston super Ely, quite close to the M4, 10 miles west of Cardiff. (map)

We are not Gedryck, Gedrick or Goodridge.
Don't be led astray by a similar but totally different set of names. Gedridge, Goodrich, Goodridge, Gedrick, Gedryk, Getteridge, are absolutely no relation whatsoever.
In Welsh the name is properly pronounced Gedruch (emphasis on the e as in ed. And the ch pronounced as in loch)

In the 60's I tracked the whole Germanic thing. Gedryck is a perfectly good German word though it tends to get distorted into all sorts of other things (Gedrijk is just one such.) This family hales from a small village on the Poland Russia border. Of Jewish descent, members of the family emigrated to the United States in the 1870's. I also met members of that group in Sweden, Holland and Germany. This occurs quite frequently in Eastern Europe in various guises.

I thought I'd throw that in just to set the record straight.

Another piece of debunking relates to the Mathew family and the Earls of Llandaff.

As the holder of the name Mathew as well as Gedrych, I was intrigued with the connection with the Mathew family. The stories rattled around about lost earldoms, family land and the such. For my own mind I have put this all to rest. The tale is intriguing, mostly for what it says about middle class England (and Cardiff Society) at the start of the nineteenth century.

There are two, not entirely unrelated parts to this tale, which rightly belongs elsewhere. I am still researching it but suffice it to say that the Gedrych family is only connected to the Mathew family of Fairwater, although somewhat entangled by negotiations and legal suits (of which more later) and only remotely connected to the earldom.

Part one - the Mathew connection -
In Oct 1800 John Gedrych, son of John Gedrych of Leckwith (my god, we are creative with names aren't we), married Mary Johns. She was the younger daughter of Elizabeth and William Johns. Elizabeth was the daughter of Thomas Mathew of Leckwith who was a distant (and I really mean that) relation of the then Earl of Llandaff, Francis James Mathew of Swansea. The earldom went into abeyance on Francis's death in 1833 and the estates passed to his sister Elizabeth ( not the same Elizabeth as above) who later dispose of them to a distant cousin. Elizabeth Johns's (nee Mathew) brother, Anthony Mathew of Whitchurch, later Fairwater, was a barrister and agent to the Earl of Llandaff. Who was Irish, living in Swansea. So we are somewhat remotely related to the Mathew family.
This should dispose of the connection with the Mathew Family.

With me so far?

OK, Part 2.

Elizabeth and William Johns had two daughters, Elizabeth the elder and Mary. Elizabeth, the little schemer married her cousin William Mathew, son of Blethyn Mathew, the second son of William Mathew, Gentleman, of Cogan Pill. Who can rightly be said to be the fly in the ointment.

Born in 1713 ( and therefore contiguous with Edward Gedrych of Dyffryn) he was lord of the Manor of Leckwith and Penarth. When his kinsman Francis Mathew of Thurles was elevated to the Earldom (why? I don't know. Yet), the succession to the Barony remained with William. Being a choleric Jacobean Gent, when his eldest son (also William) engaged in trade ( as a printer in Bristol) he was so incensed that he made over this right to the Irish branch of the Mathew family.

Still following?
Very well. William Mathew of Bristol was a renowned printer and a strong supporter as well as publisher of John Wesley and Hannah More. He married Catherine Hazard who was one of Wesley's first converts. He adopted the form Mathews which many of his descendants use. To cut a long story short, his father died unreconciled and the estate went to Blethyn, the younger son, whose eldest son, William, was married to Elizabeth Johns, elder sister of Mary, married to John Gedrych. This means that by local standards Elizabeth and her husband William, were stinking rich and in possession of the estates of the Lord of the Manor, if not the title. This happened in 1804, 4 years after Mary married John Gedrych and two years after the birth of my great great grandfather also a William. They were living in Leckwith at the time probably in a house on the estate. In 1811 William Mathew and Elizabeth inherited the estates from Blethyn.

Now the plot thickens. This is the nub of the whole family argument, the effects of which are still echoing around today. The disposal and subsequent use of the land and monies inherited via various members of the family was subject to much controversy, and the seeming implausable imprisonment for no cause of William Gedrych. This is when the squabbles begin and the families fell out. By 1828 this squabble had led to the courts at first locally then nationally.

The whole thing kept reappearing for over 50 years with my grandfather and his uncles still trying to chase the land and money in the 1880's. In a judgement in 1869, forty years after the offences which started this running, the Courts found the Gedrych claim unproven and unprovable and threw it out, the heart of the argument appearing to be that Elizabeth Mathew, nee Johns, was illegitimate having been conceived and probably born out of wedlock.

Since then the story keeps coming back to haunt us. It was a cause celebre at the time and refered to as the "Welsh Legitimacy Case" by the press, aired again at the time my grandfather died (1912). I hope I have laid it finally to rest.

If you want to read more about this and see some of the documents go here. If any one has anything to add I would be grateful.