American outlaw Jesse James can trace family history to Wales

He is perhaps the most notorious outlaw of America's Wild West and a name that struck fear into many. While his name was infamous, what many don't know is that Jesse James can trace his ancestry to Wales. Although the gunslinger grew up in Missouri, his great-grandfather William James was born in Little Newcastle, Pembrokeshire, in 1754 and emigrated to Pennsylvania in the late 18th Century before the family moved west to Kentucky, and then to their eventual home in Missouri. Starting as a Confederate guerrilla fighter during the American Civil War of 1861-1865, until 1882 Jesse and his elder brother Frank carried out countless armed robberies, murders and violent crimes. Yet he remains an American folklore hero to this day, in part thanks to the legend of his murder by fellow gang member Robert Ford. As record keeping in a fledgling United States was still in its embryonic stages, information about the family is patchy at best, not helped by the fact that virtually all males before Jesse and Frank seemed to have been called either William or John. From the Pembrokeshire end, it is possible to deduce that great-grandfather William was born in Little Newcastle in August 1754. Once i

Mar 29, 2026 → Apr 11, 2026