When Gethin Matthews, a senior lecturer in history at Swansea University, discovered the existence of 100 or so letters written by three brothers – Richard, Gabriel and Ivor Eustis – to family back home in Swansea during the First World War, he knew they were something special. Not only did they feed into a research project he was working on, but the siblings were related to him. However, among the letters was one that he found deeply unsettling.
“I've always been interested in Welsh history, so it's natural for me to want to know how my family fit in. I've amassed a lot of information on all of my lines: 15 of my 16 great great grandparents were Welsh, and one is of Cornish ancestry – the Eustis branch.”
Gethin's initial area of academic interest was the Welsh overseas, but his focus has been on the Welsh during the First World War for the past decade. “Back
