The Records
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Recent Finds
A running journal of discoveries, newest first. Red entries changed the tree.
The Edenkoben Reformed baptism book (1739–1771) is now swept image-by-image. It yields the four children of John Jacob Welde × Anna Catharina Croissant — Anna Elisabetha (1740), Maria Margaretha (1744), Johann Nicolaus (1746) and Anna Barbara (1748), all of an age to have crossed on the Snow Ketty in 1752. And on the 14 June 1750 leaf sits Johann Jacob, son of Georg Wolfgang Welde — the Manchester branch’s founding son — with Jacob Welde & Anna Catharina standing as his godparents. The two Welde households sponsor each other: the kinship between the uncle’s line and the Manchester line is now welded on primary paper.
John Jacob’s son Philip Jacob Welty (b. 1780) × Catharina Knaub is filled out to nine children — seven new great-grandchildren added to the Manchester (I1) branch of the tree — and John Jacob’s own five proven children get firmed birth years. Three further sons floated by descendant trees are flagged unconfirmed, and the unreliable WikiTree conflation (Welty-342) is marked so it can’t contaminate the line.
Every remaining venue is now exhausted. Brownback’s has no pre-1832 register (its early records are East Vincent’s, already negative); Fluck’s 1891 church history confirms East Vincent is the only northern-Chester German Reformed register surviving into 1754–60; the “New Hanover” cluster’s book is identified as New Hanover Lutheran and its 1756–59 baptisms were paged one by one — no Welde. And the 29-year blank finally closed: the complete Chester County proprietary tax lists 1765–1785 were swept at full OCR coverage — not one Welty, no Philip. Michael’s ~1757 baptism remains unlocated; the search now widens beyond Chester.
Every Edenkoben Reformed marriage from 1739 to Philip’s August 1750 crossing was read entry-by-entry: no Philip Jacob Welde wedding. He married Elizabeth on the Pennsylvania side, ~1751–56 — redirecting the hunt to the German Reformed churches that served fresh Philadelphia arrivals (First Reformed Lancaster, the Goshenhoppen circuit).
The baptism book was read to its last leaf (“FINIS,” 1771): zero further Wäldi or Welde after 1752. That closes the hunt for late-born children of the vanished uncle Hans Philipp Wäldi — he leaves no trace in the register — and means the Edenkoben Reformed baptisms are now 100% swept.
Image-verified in the Edenkoben Reformed register (Bild 79): John Jacob Welde × Anna Catharina Croissant, 5 February 1738. That marriage welds the Snow Ketty’s self-signed “Jacob Welde” (Philadelphia, 16 Oct 1752) to the Edenkoben household — the uncle’s crossing is solved.
The Palatine emigrant card-file (IPGV Migrationskartei) carries a card for Jakob Welde of Edenkoben: wife Anna Catharina Croissant, and a child recorded at Nantmeal, Chester County, 1773 — the uncle documented in Michael’s own birth county. The Croissant in-law chain (1741/1749/1752 crossings, Pennsylvania alias “Crassan”) came with it, image-checked; and a Peter Wälti, Switzerland → Bolanderhof, surfaces as a candidate bridge between the Swiss cradle and the Palatinate. A Krebs abstract separately documents Anna Catharina’s own emigration (~1756).
The novelist’s line is solved: Eudora Welty (b. 1909, Jackson MS) descends from the separate Swiss (I2b) family via a newly-traced John Welty b. 1765 branch through Fairfield and Hocking Cos., Ohio. Five generations added to the roster and the tree.
The census schedule reads “Welty, Micael: 1 male 16+, 2 boys, 1 female.” Philip (b. May 1789) is one boy and Henry wasn’t born yet — so the second boy is the first record-grade support for one of the tradition-only elder sons (John b. 1786 or Jacob b. 1788). And with only one woman in the house — and no female-headed Welty household anywhere in Pennsylvania in 1790 — grandmother Elizabeth was most likely dead by census day, within a year or two of Philip Jacob.
Philip Jacob’s wife — “Elizabeth, m. 1754,” known only from a cousin’s pedigree — got her own research front (six new leads). First sweeps: every published Philadelphia marriage corpus (licenses, Gloria Dei, 1st Reformed) is negative, pointing the wedding to Chester Co.; a Chester in-law sweep found no father’s will but flushed out two flags — a “Weldy” taxpayer who proved to be Welsh (Obedia Wieldy of Haverford, decoy, killed same day) and a keeper: a 1804 Hagerstown MD will naming son-in-law Jacob Weldy — a documented Weldy family at Hagerstown, right where the 1897 letter’s legend put a “brother.”
The flagged “Philip Welty” entries at Bethlehem (1772) and Moore Twp (1781) — the one man who could have rewritten Philip Jacob’s blank years — are a persistent Moore Township farmer (40 ac in 1785, 60 ac in 1786, same neighbors both years, image-read) living there through the exact years Philip Jacob heads the Dover tax rolls. Two simultaneous households, two men: decoy, fenced.
How the Crooked Run farm was really acquired: Abraham Forney entered the two estate quarters in 1817–18 (patents image-verified — the clerk genuinely wrote “Fawney”) and sold his interest to Michael, exactly as the 1884 county history says. The 1825 “Michael Welty” patent long pinned to Michael Sr is structurally excluded (its cash act postdates his death) and re-reads as Michael Jr.’s own quarter.
Michael’s baptism hunt narrowed hard: the East Vincent IGI batches cover the register’s entire 1733–1880 run with zero Welty variants, and Falckner Swamp (New Hanover) Reformed — Leydich’s own book — is negative too. The “New Hanover Welte cluster” appears in neither New Hanover book; its source is unidentified.
A full re-read of the 1709 marriage entry shows Anna Catharina’s late father was a farmer zu Neckargemünd (near Heidelberg) — the “von Steinbach” misparse theory is dead. The Kraichgau rival reading for the apex’s hometown was then tested and killed: zero Wäldi in Neckarbischofsheim’s burials 1684–1712, zero Durchsteinbach in Neckargemünd’s. The apex tilts back to Donnersberg-Bischheim. Kirchheimbolanden’s book is also now 100% swept: no Wäldi family.
GLO bycatch: a female “Catharine Walta” patented 80 acres in the estate farm’s own section in 1833 (“to HER heirs,” image-verified), with no 1830 household of her own — a fit for Michael’s widow Catharine living in a child’s household and buying land beside her dower third.
Jacob Welday’s 1800 Somerset household holds an unexplained second man 45+ — the first record-grade datum compatible with an aged Philip Jacob having gone west with his sons instead of dying ~1789 in Dover. Killer test: the 1810 follow-through. The same read pushes Jacob’s own birth to before 1755 (the old “b.1759” came from a 1946 query).
A sweep of every federal Rev-War collection finds no Michael and no Jacob Welty among the 13 exact-surname hits — consistent with York Co militia service living outside the federal rolls. The unpublished DAR GRC company roster remains the only known service paper for the pair.
A new cluster: John Welly of Bullskin Twp — adjacent to Donegal, ~10 mi from Michael’s 1797–1807 residence — is a live candidate for brother John of Dover tracking west; Joseph + Peter Welly of Springhill Twp are unsorted.
The Trinity York sibling-set — Elizabeth (×Gauf 1775), Christina (×Messerle 1784), Catharina (×Boehm 1785), plus John’s 1783 Ilgenfritz marriage — is now on the family tree as clearly-flagged hypotheses under Philip Jacob. Two date audits opened alongside: Michael’s “9 Sep 1815” death vs. an administration docket opened 7 Sep, and Philip Jacob’s death bracket now carries the 1800 fork above.
The 1790 Newberry Twp census entry that threatened Philip Jacob’s d. ~1789 death bracket is Philip Jacob Wild (b. 1759) — the “third Philip Jacob” who married Anna Maria Wild at Trinity in 1780. The 1779 Newberry tax list has zero Weltys. Our Philip Jacob’s death bracket stands.
A full-text sweep of PA Archives vol. 21 surfaced a new 1783 Dover tax pairing — “Weldy Phillip 100” adjacent to “Weldy Jacob 100” (and 1781 prints two Philip entries). Fresh support for the farm-partition and brother readings.
The 1925 Ruthrauff book’s claim fails: the complete 1779 Dover tax list has no John Welty — the book misread the adjacent line “Wilte, John.” The real John of Dover (1786–88) is untouched, but 1790 shows two Johns in the future-Adams-Co grouping, and the Adams Weltys trace to Washington Co MD — so the Straban leg is now in doubt.
20 May 1753 turns out to be a Lutheran confirmation day — the Ancestry entries carrying that date as a “baptism” are confirmations of older children, and are now treated as suspect.
The vol. 21 hit-map cleanly separates the lines: a continuous “Welty, Jacob 100” in Manchester Twp 1779–82 (Manchester family), the Manheim Twp cluster of John + Peter verified (Swiss family), and the Dover Weldys (German family). The Taneytown/Emmitsburg MD Weltys — Catholic, from Eppingen not Edenkoben — are confirmed a separate family entirely.
All 20 sheets audited: numbering collisions fixed, the ghost 10-May wedding date purged everywhere, four new leads opened (highest-payoff: the New Hanover register test), and the trees regenerated.
The Hinke typescript of the Trinity Reformed (York) register gives Michael Welty × Christina Ruthrauff verbatim as 18 May 1784. The long-circulated “10 May 1785 double wedding” date is a ghost — killed.
A 1943 genealogical query and its answer name her parents: Johannes & Anna Barbara (Hoffman) Ruthrauff of Newberry Twp, and show Christina died before 1814 — which means Michael’s two marriages split earlier than assumed.
Hoover’s 1925 county history (ch. XIX) preserves an 1897 family letter in full: grave slab at the Pleasant Hill Schoolhouse, Blicktown (Tuscarawas Co.) — now geolocated. Same letter carries “wedded without consent,” the 10 + 7 = 17 children count, and a claim that Michael’s father settled at Gettysburg — legend, rejected: his father is Philip Jacob of Dover (Edenkoben line); the Gettysburg lore likely borrowed from the separate Taneytown/Emmitsburg MD Welty family (D12).
Full sweep of the Edenkoben Reformed baptismal register (all 133 images): no Michael Wälti. Michael’s namesake must come from the Pennsylvania side — a Chester Co. godfather or his mother Elizabeth’s kin. Bycatch: two new siblings in the Edenkoben generation (Johannes bp. 1713, Anna Barbara bp. 1714) and a new uncle, Hans Philipp Wäldi (b. ~1693).
“Jacob Welde” and “Geörg Welde,” both self-signed (facsimile-checked), arrived Philadelphia 16 Oct 1752 — now competing with the Janet (1751) for George Wolfgang’s crossing. Philip crossed alone on the Royal Union (“Phipps Welde”).
The register holds a tight cluster — likely a sibling set. New sisters surfaced: Christina × Messerle (1784), Catharina × Boehm (1785), plus Johannes × Ilgenfritz (1783).
An unpublished DAR GRC typescript roster (2nd Battalion, York Co., ~1780s) lists both Michael and Jacob Welty in one company — strong brother evidence. Copy ordered.
Dover Twp tax lists, 1782: Philip’s 100 acres shrinks to 80, a new adjacent “Jacob 80” appears, alongside Michael’s 44 — the classic signature of a father dividing land among sons.
Levi (1825–1902), a probable grandson of Michael, is credited with naming Cripple Creek. His son Alonzo ran a $100k livery business there.
The founder of Weltytown was John Henry Welty b. 1764 (wife Eva Catherine Stoner) — not our Michael, who is clean-negative in all three Ruff volumes 1782–1820.
The village pastor from 1681 was Johann Jacob Walth — the apex surname is also the pastor’s family. A kinship hypothesis is open.
The separate Swiss (I2b) family’s spine now runs York → Frederick MD (1766) → Rowan NC (1773) → KY → Missouri. All “Swiss origin” grafts onto the German line trace to Bishop Abraham of Dover Twp, Tuscarawas — Michael’s own township. Mystery of the bad grafts: solved.
A new FTDNA match between two living relatives connects the Manchester (I1) family’s two halves internally, and a living cousina living cousin’srsquo;s Big Y-700 order is confirmed by the project admin.
The project now tracks all three founding lines in parallel — the German family (ours, R1b), the Manchester family (I1), and the Swiss family (I2b) — so decoys get sorted instead of deleted.
Subscribed to Archion and found the correct register: Edenkoben Band 2 (Reformed), baptisms 1696–1738 — holding both John Jacob (bp. 1710) and Philip Jacob (bp. 1719).
FindAGrave proves his father William (b. 1816) was a son of Henry & Mary Byerly — making the Hicksville benefactor Henry’s grandson. William’s three pre-1905 children also grave-confirmed.
All ~33 patrilineage pages reviewed: Hans Jacob Waldi (b. ~1691, Edenkoben) named as father of John Jacob b. 1710 — and three different “Philip Jacob Weltys” at Dover cleanly split by haplogroup.
Brian Hamman, admin of the Welty Y-DNA project, confirmed the Edenkoben branch map and sent the STR chart. A living cousinA living cousin’srsquo;s Y-67 kit traces to George b. 1823 — the direct line — making his Big Y upgrade the keystone test.