The Wogan Genealogy Site

This site covers the Wogan family history from the 13th to 20th centuries. The information provided represents the research of a number of individuals over about the last 20 years.   Much of the information on the earlier branches is from secondary sources not least because in many cases the primary sources no longer exist.

The name of Wogan has a long history stretching back to Wales in the 11th and 12th centuries. The name is an anglicisation of the Welsh name Gwgan (in Welsh 'W' is a vowel pronounced rather like the 'oo' in the word 'too'). The name Gwgan was not a surname as we know them today but was simply the descriptive term applied to an individual which was then effectively his name. Gwgan is derived from the Welsh word Gwg - meaning a scowl or a frown - hence Gwgan - the scowler.

The Gwgan who is believed to have fathered the Wogan family was the son of Bleddyn ap Maenach (ap is Welsh for 'son of') and married Gwenllian Gwys who was the grandaughter of Wizo (Latin) or Gwys (Welsh) a Flemish settler. It was Wizo who built a castle in Pembrokeshire in return for a grant of land. The location of the castle took it's name from it's founder and has been known since at least the 12th century as Wiston.

All the oldest mentions of the Wogan name point back to Pembrokeshire and to Wiston as the parent branch of the family.

Little is known of the immediate descendants of Gwgan but in the late 13th century Sir John Wogan of Wiston rose to prominence in the service of Edward 1. This particular Sir John (there were lots of Sir John Wogan's) was appointed Justiciar of Ireland by the King on 18th October 1295.