Help when you least expect it.
It is not every day that you receive tips from unlikely sources. You just never know when an article or comment on social media might lead to a discovery on your family tree. This happened to me and is an on-going research project, but it looks promising.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a RootsTech video about grafting and pruning your family tree by Diana Elder (watch it here). She was describing finding new information that led to questioning whether or not the correct parents had been found for one of their ancestors, an Elizabeth Welch. She had mentioned Texas as a place where they had lived, so it was interesting to me since my husband is a deep-rooted Texan. Well, imagine my surprise when she showed marriage records for Robertson County, Texas for the siblings of her newly discovered correct Welch ancestor. Our Welch family lived in Robertson County too!
So, I looked at my research and had not gotten past George Welch born about 1851 in Texas according to the 1880 census. His parents were listed as being born in Mississippi. Hmm. Her Welch family had come from Alabama, but there was a little brother named George, born a couple of years earlier than our George, but in Alabama. Most of the family had been born in South Carolina. Could they be related somehow? Someone on FamilySearch.org had connected these two Georges, but there was really no evidence that they were the same.
I checked the DNA on Ancestry ThruLines, and there was no parent for George listed. I plugged in the information from the video for the parents of this other George from Alabama to see if ThruLines would appear. After a couple days, there was nothing. So, I deleted them. The next day or so, they did appear for George Welch’s father George Welch! I took screenshots of them and started looking at these matches. They were smaller matches, so iffy. Their shared matches matched to others on this Welch side, so possible! I then started looking at the other matches on ThruLines and they almost all matched with each other.
I have emailed the screen shots to Diana, and am waiting to see if they might match to these matches as well. There is no DNA shared between her and us. I am also awaiting another DNA test that will hopefully help show better matches as they are one generation older, and will hopefully share more DNA with more matches.
It is still unclear at this point, on whether George is a sibling to this family, or maybe a first cousin perhaps. I say this because he is listed as being born in Texas about 3-4 years later than the little brother George from Diana’s family in the census records. Hers was born in Alabama and they were living there in 1850. With families moving around so much, it is sometimes hard to find information on them, and if this is the same George, maybe he forgot where and when he was born?
There was a DNA match on ThruLines for the little brother, George W Welch. This line had him staying in Alabama and raising a family there. After looking at census records, there was another George W Welch (Walch) on the 1850 census also in Pickens County, Alabama. Nancy Walch was listed as head of household and a widow, and likely his mother. I am wondering if these Georges might be cousins somehow.
Ancestry.com has a “hint” for a George W Welch listed in the 1860 census born in 1852 in Kentucky and living in Crawford, Buchanan, Missouri. This George appears to have 7 siblings. I do not believe that this family is related though.
I will be updating as I find out more information.
What unexpected tips have you gotten to help with your family tree?
Who Were They? 