An American DIY genealogist is writing a book after tracing his family's roots back to 1600s Rhayader.

When Joe Eaton from Napa, California, entered his family information into Ancestry.com back in 2004, he didn’t know it would send him on a 20-year research crusade.

He discovered that his ancestors arrived in the ‘new world’ North America around 1686 and were instrumental in setting up one of the first Baptist churches in the country, which still stands in Philadelphia today.

Uncovering his family story unwittingly unveiled the story of Welsh Baptists who fled their home due to religious persecution under the Catholic rule of Charles II.

Joe, a retired IT specialist, said: “I didn’t intend to dig this deep into my family.

“I received this great 30-page document from Ancestry.com that went back to the 1840s and then stopped.

“I was fascinated by it but the dates were all hooey.

“I became absorbed and once I started I couldn’t stop.

“[I discovered] we had this rich family history... When you see a story of an entire community under threat by this great antagonist and it’s untold, someone has to tell it.”

He began untangling the conflicting dates, which plotted some children before their parents were born.

In his research he discovered the incredible story of Baptists John and Joan Eaton’s great escape.

He traced them back to Nantmel in Rhayader, from where they took a four-day journey to Milford Haven port.

There are no records of their crossing, next appearing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Joe said: “I have a theory that they snuck out in the darkness with a group of Quakers and stayed in religious safe houses.

“I know they were there one moment and gone the next.”

What they were fleeing was a post-civil war era Wales, in which the rule of Charles II prioritised Catholicism above all else.

According to Joe’s research, an infamous Welsh judge called George Jeffreys, dubbed the ‘Hanging Judge’ due to his harsh sentences, was heavy-handedly prosecuting religious minorities in Wales around the time his ancestors fled.

Welsh Baptists were the first group of Welsh settlers to arrive in North America, after being alienated in Britain by other Christian groups.

The rough boat journeys from Wales to the ‘new world’ lasted an average of three months.

After some settled in Massachusetts ‘Swanzey’, Welsh religious refugees moved up to Pennsylvania, becoming the largest proportion of immigrants in the new state at the end of the 17th Century.

William Penn, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, was given the land by Charles II, originally wanting to call it ‘New Wales’.

The conservatives within England and Wales disliked the non-conformist nature of Quakers and Baptists, seeing them as a danger to social and political order.

Penn advertised his new colony to the Welsh, offering them what would become the ‘Welsh Tract’, which still holds names such as ‘Gwynedd’ today.

Penn’s vision was to create a haven for people of all religions and backgrounds, dubbed ‘the Holy Experiment’.

The Eaton’s were some of the earliest Baptists to settle in Philadelphia.

Meg E Roberts, historian of 18th Century Philadelphia at the University of Cambridge, spoke of the importance of these communities: “The Welsh Baptists and Quakers who crossed the Atlantic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made their mark on Philadelphia in numerous ways that are still evident today.

“Their legacy is most visible in the Welsh names peppered around the city’s neighbourhoods and colleges, but it does not take much digging to discover the Welsh influence on the early churches, institutions and social movements that Philadelphians still benefit from today.

“The Baptist and Quaker communities of the past kept remarkably detailed records everywhere they went, partly due to the need to document the persecution they persistently experienced.

“Centuries later, their descendants benefit from their archival diligence just as much as historians do.

“With the increased digitisation of genealogical records, people can track their ancestors across continents and discover the thrills of historical detective work from the comfort of their own home!”

Joan and John Eaton live on not only through Joe’s family but with a plaque on Pennepack Baptist Church there, which the family were instrumental in helping set up to become the eighth Baptist Church in the US.

Records show their donations of time, money and even their land to the cause to establish the church in 1688, 336 years ago.

He found records of his later ancestors “pushing West with the new frontier” as the United States slowly formed.

Joe still has lots of unanswered questions in his research, like exactly why John and Joan left, who and what they left behind and how they managed their great escape.

This was when he realised he could write a book inspired by the tale to fill in the gaps.

Joe, 58, said: “The story of their escape is untold, but it’s a compelling tale.

“There’s this huge cast of characters, spanning across different time periods and places.

“[Now] I’m using my creative license to get them from point A to point B.”

Joe has now established an online community of Eaton’s from across America to share his findings, and believes to have the world's largest collection of Eaton research materials: “I never had kids.

“I’m getting older and realising that I’m leaving behind nothing - I want to create a legacy so that my nieces and nephews in the future who develop an interest in genealogy can use this book and say my name in 100 years time and in that brief second I’ll be alive.”

To find out about the release of his book, connect or share information contact Joe at [email protected].