A new book claims that Elvis Presley's roots lay not in the American Deep South but in the Welsh valleys. The revelation has been published in Terry Beverton's A – Z of Wales, and is backed-up by some very persuasive factual investigations.
Breverton, a historian based at the University of Wales in Cardiff, claims The King was named after the St Elvis chapel on a Welsh mountainside. He also asserts that Elvis's surname was derived from the Presili Hills. Elvis's parents had the Welsh names of Gladys and Vernon, while his grandmother Doll Mansell is linked to the Mansel family from Oxwich on the Gower Peninsula.
Finally, The King's dead twin brother Jesse Garon Presley had a Welsh second name. Beverton concludes: 'Although most Elvisologists' believe that Elvis came from Scottish and Cherokee blood, further research would probably solidify the Welsh connection at the expense of the Scottish.'