The Welty FamilyResearch Journal
The Welty FamilyResearch Journal
Every Welty family we can place — one German household and seven more Welty families, ~1568–today
Die Pfalz — in English, the Palatinate — is the historic region along the middle Rhine that was ruled by the Prince-Elector Palatine (the Kurpfalz), one of the patchwork of principalities that made up the old Holy Roman Empire. It was repeatedly wrecked by war: the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) and then the French invasions of 1688–97 burned its towns and emptied whole villages — which is exactly why the surviving registers have gaps (Neckargemünd’s baptisms are missing 1650–1701; Kirchheimbolanden’s 1690–93). It was rebuilt partly with Reformed migrants from Switzerland, and then, in the 1700s, sent tens of thousands of its own people down the Rhine to Pennsylvania — so many that “Palatine” became the catch-all English word for German emigrants, and their descendants the “Pennsylvania Dutch.”
Two more things the region explains about this family: there was no civil registration — church registers were the only record of births, marriages and deaths, kept separately by Lutheran and Reformed congregations (the Edenkoben family is Reformed — the detail that finally located the right books). And geography: Bischheim sits in the hills near the Donnersberg, the highest peak of the Pfalz; Edenkoben lies 50 km southeast on the Weinstraße wine road; the bride’s Neckargemünd is across the Rhine plain, up the Neckar past Heidelberg. Today it’s all part of the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. Not every family on this page is Palatine, though: the Taneytown Weltys came from Eppingen in Baden, and two separate Wälti lines from the Bernese valleys of Switzerland.
Europe — the Palatinate (Edenkoben), Baden (Eppingen) and the Bernese valleys (Emmental, Simmental, Saanen). Names marked “emigrated” sailed and reappear on the American map:
America — opening on the York County pile-up itself; zoom out to follow each family’s spread. Faint lines trace the migrations:
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
There is no single Welty homeland. The Y-DNA of the FTDNA Welty project splits the surname into at least eight unrelated bloodlines, and they set out for America from four different corners of the German-speaking world — two Bernese valleys in Switzerland, the war-scarred Palatinate, and Baden across the Rhine. This chapter starts them all at home, oldest first, before any of them ever saw Pennsylvania. From here the page follows time, then place: watch each family arrive, collide with the others on the same colonial tax rolls, and peel off to its own country.
The Simmental, Switzerland — from 1568. The oldest dated Welty on this entire page is a Swiss one: Anthoni Wälti, christened 1568 at Lenk im Simmental, son of Christen Wälti — the top of a submitted Bernese pedigree (Y-DNA haplogroup G, kit #161609) that runs eleven generations down through the Simmental to Emanuel (b.1832) and the emigrant Johann Gottlieb Wälti (b.1861, Saanen), who would land at Upper Sandusky, Ohio. This is a wholly separate clan — haplogroup G shares no paternal ancestor with any of the R- or I-line Weltys below. The deep rungs rest on that single unverified pedigree, so they’re carried as lore until a register confirms them; Gottlieb himself is documented. His American arrival waits in the Ohio chapter.
The Emmental, Switzerland. A second, unrelated Swiss line — the Reformed Wälti of Lauperswil / Lützelflüh in the Bernese Emmental (Y-DNA I2b). This is the family the famous “river Aar, Berne” origin story (GAMEO) actually belongs to — a tale later grafted, wrongly, onto the German Edenkoben Weltys. The parish trail already marks an emigrant bound “to America, 1727,” and the line would reach Manheim Twp, York Co PA in the colonial era — where its paths first crossed the Edenkoben brothers’. Branches later ran to Rowan Co NC (via Frederick MD), to Fairfield & Hocking Co OH (the line that produced the novelist Eudora Welty, and on to Jackson MS), and — by a fresh 1846 emigration straight from Bagischwand — to Pandora, Putnam Co OH. We’ll meet them again on a Dover tax roll, and again on a farm in Ohio.
Bischheim (Donnersberg), before 1709. Johann Georg Wäldi (d. before Apr 1707) — the apex of the proven Edenkoben line, Bürger of Bischheim near Kirchheimbolanden. Named as the late father of Hans Jacob in the 1709 Edenkoben marriage record (Archion reg 54933, image 63) — the entry that pushed the line back a full generation. A second son, Hans Philipp Wäldi (b.~1693), whose Easter 1707 Edenkoben confirmation already calls Johann Georg deceased, tightens the apex’s death to before April 1707.
The surname was in the village at exactly the right time — as the pastor’s family: Bischheim’s Lutheran pastor 1681–1690 was Johann Jacob Walth/Waltz (wife Maria Barbara; son Johann Daniel bapt. 2 Feb 1682 in his own hand — reg 47031, images 7 & 149). The Pfälzisches Pfarrerbuch (Biundo Nr. 5699) tracks him on to Lauterecken and Reichenbach, d.1715. Whether apex Johann Georg was the pastor’s kinsman (son? brother?) is the open hypothesis at the top of the tree.
Johann Georg has no burial in the Bischheim book 1683–1709, and no Reformed Bischheim register exists at all. Bischheim was pastorless 1690–99, and the fallback book — Kirchheimbolanden reg 46155 — holds zero Wäldi as a family (a 1690–93 war gap leaves Hans Jacob’s ~1691 baptism untestable there, not negative). On the 1709 marriage entry the bride, Anna Catharina, was the surviving daughter of the late N. Durchsteinbach, Hüfner zu Neckargemünd — a farmer at Neckargemünd near Heidelberg. The old “von Steinbach” misparse is dead; the surname stands as written. Her hometown briefly made Neckarbischofsheim (Kraichgau) a rival reading for the apex’s abbreviated “Bischh-” — but that rival is ruled out: zero Wäldi in Neckarbischofsheim’s burials 1684–1712 and zero Durchsteinbach in Neckargemünd’s Reformed burials 1654–1709. The needle tilts back to Donnersberg-Bischheim.
Edenkoben, 1709 – ~1752. Hans Jacob Wäldi marries Anna Catharina here in Sept 1709. The 1713 baptism entry calls him der Müller (the miller); the marriage entry’s own occupation word seems instead to say der Seiler(?) — rope-maker? — putting a caveat on the “milling family” premise. The family is Reformed, not Lutheran — the detail that finally pointed to the right register book.
Their sons, all baptized in the Edenkoben Reformed register (Archion reg 54930): John Jacob (14 Oct 1710, image 52), Georg Wolfgang (~1716, image 66), and Philip Jacob (7 May 1719, image 71 — the entry that proved his parentage). All three share the same mother: full brothers of one household. The register records two more siblings — Johannes (bp. 2 Feb 1713) and Anna Barbara (bp. Aug 1714).
The register also settles a question that matters three chapters from now: there is no Michael Wälti anywhere in Edenkoben. Since the family demonstrably named children for their godparents (Philip Jacob for godfather Philipp Jacob Haaß; John Jacob for a Neustadt baker Joh. Jacob), Michael’s namesake must be his godfather — doubling the stakes on the baptism hunt to come. Georg Wolfgang marries Anna Maria Keibel of Deggelsheim here 7 Jan 1750 (reg 54933, image 89); their first son Johan Jacob is baptized 14 Jun 1750 (reg 54927, image 57) — grandparents Hans Jacob & Anna Catharina standing as godparents.
The old family lore — “three brothers came over” (1897 letter, 1902 autobiography) — is literally supported. The lore’s Swiss/“river Aar, Berne” wrapper is rejected: that story belongs to the unrelated Emmental (I2b) Wälti above. The papers’ “Michael Welty Sr., 1740 immigrant of Gettysburg” is likewise a graft from the 1754 Richard & Mary ship list — and its real-world seed is the Taneytown family just below.
Eppingen, Baden, 1722. Across the Rhine in the Kraichgau, John Welty is born in 1722 at Eppingen — Roman Catholic, from Baden, not the Palatinate. He would cross in 1751 and settle the Taneytown district of Maryland, ten miles south of Gettysburg, and it is his well-documented clan — not the Edenkoben one — that seeded the family’s stubborn “Gettysburg brother” legend. His full story runs south, in the Maryland & Virginia chapter.
The Palatinate, ~1744. Somewhere in the Palatinate, John (Nicolaus) Welty is born about 1744 (Y-DNA R1a, kit #43635) — a haplogroup that cannot share a father with the R1b Edenkoben line, however close they would later live. He would enlist in the Continental Army’s German Regiment, marry a Dover girl at the same York altar as the Edenkoben Michael, and end his days in Tennessee. His story picks up in Greene County.
Already across the water. One Welty line skips the German crossings entirely: the Weldys of Virginia (Y-DNA R1b, R-DF49) were established at Hanover County by about 1721, when William Weldy Jr. appears there — a full generation before the Pennsylvania immigrants stepped off their ships. They never touched York County, and their arc runs entirely through Goochland and the Deep South.
1727 — the Emmental line. The earliest Welty crossing on record isn’t the German one: the Lauperswil parish trail marks a Wälti emigrant leaving “to America, 1727,” a generation ahead of the Edenkoben brothers — which is why the unrelated Swiss (I2b) family is already rooted in York County by the time the Germans arrive.
1751 — the Neptune. John Welty of Eppingen (b.1722) lands at Philadelphia on the ship Neptune, 1751 — the future Taneytown patriarch, who would spend his own first American decade in York County before crossing into Maryland.
1750 & 1752 — the Edenkoben brothers. Philip Jacob (age 31) lands at Philadelphia 15 Aug 1750 on the ship Royal Union — “Phipps Welde” with a sick-mark on the oath list (Strassburger & Hinke, Vol I p.433; the long-circulated p.230 cite was wrong). He crossed alone — the full index shows no other Welde/Weltz/Welter variant aboard.
The brothers followed two years later. George Wolfgang and John Jacob arrived together at Philadelphia on the snow Ketty, 16 Oct 1752 — “Jacob Welde” and “Geörg Welde” entered one above the other on the oath list, both self-signed in Kurrent (Strassburger & Hinke, Vol I pp.496–97 + facsimile plates) and spelling the name “Welde” exactly as Philip’s 1750 clerk did. All three brothers are now placed on their crossings.
1754 — the ship the legend borrowed. The Richard & Mary crossing of 1754 carried no Edenkoben Welty — but it is the misdated source of the “Michael Welty Sr., 1740 immigrant” legend, quietly moved back fourteen years and attached to the wrong man. Two crossings still have no ship: John (Nicolaus) Welty (R1a) and John of Cumberland aren’t on a passenger list yet.
Philip Jacob marries Elizabeth at an unrecorded date after his August 1750 landing, on the family’s first American ground — the Philadelphia hinterland. The First Reformed Philadelphia theory is closed-negative: the right volume’s full marriage list 1748–1810 holds no Welty and no Philip × Elizabeth 1752–56 — so the marriage happened at a congregation whose register hasn’t been read yet. He’s absent from the 1753 Chester tax lists, so the family may still have been near the Philadelphia/Germantown landing point then.
Michael Welty born between about December 1753 and about August 1755 — a window bounded at both ends by records rather than by a pedigree: the 1774 Dover freemen list he is absent from, and the 1800 census bracket he sits in. The “~1757” of the online trees is pedigree-derived. His baptism is the big open hunt — and the field has narrowed hard: East Vincent is closed-negative (the IGI batches cover the register’s entire 1733–1880 run — zero Welty variants under every spelling), and Falckner Swamp (New Hanover) Reformed — Leydich’s own book — is closed-negative too. The Lancaster-side registers (Waldschmidt/Cocalico) were already clean. That leaves Brownback’s Reformed (Chester, Ancestry coll. 2451) as the last venue standing.
The namesake angle sharpens the hunt: by the family’s documented godparent-naming custom, Michael was almost certainly named for his godfather at that missing baptism — and godparents were usually kin, often the mother’s side. Finding the baptism and finding the namesake are the same search, and the witness line could crack Elizabeth’s maiden surname in the same stroke.
John Jacob settles on the Chester/Lancaster county border and marries Christina Marie Braff 28 Mar 1757 — a year or two after nephew Michael was born, and his is the one documented Welty household in Chester County in the 1750s. That’s the strongest clue to which Reformed congregation the family used, and why Michael’s baptism hunt centers here. It is not evidence of where he was born: no record places his birth anywhere, and the “Chester Co” carried by the online pedigrees is derived rather than sourced.
Son John Henry born 4 Nov 1764, Lancaster Co — the one who will carry the line west to “Weltytown.” John Jacob dies 16 Sep 1791 in Lancaster County. His own baptism (Edenkoben image 52) proves the same mother as Philip Jacob.
A candidate sighting: an Ancestry-indexed “Joh. Jacob & Maria Margareth Welte” baptizing children 1762–66 at “New Hanover” — right window, right corridor. But a full-text search turns up the cluster in neither New Hanover register book, so its true source is unidentified — unverified until the underlying record surfaces.
This is where the story gets crowded — and where nearly every published Welty tree goes wrong. Over the second half of the 1700s, at least six unrelated Welty patrilines lived in one county at the same time: the German Edenkoben brothers, the hidden Manchester I1 branch that grew out of them, the Swiss (I2b) family already here since the 1720s, a Continental soldier of the R1a line, a second R1b line at Conewago, and a militia patriot in Cumberland Township. They farmed adjacent tracts, married at the same altars, and reused the same handful of first names — Michael, John, Jacob, Philip. Watch them arrive.
Georg Wolfgang in Dover, ~1752 – ~1780. First to reach York County is the middle Edenkoben brother. Georg Wolfgang & Anna Maria settle in Dover with Edenkoben-born son Johan Jacob (b.1750), and baptize three daughters at Strayer’s (Salem) Reformed — Mary Magdalene 1763, Anna Maria 1764, Margaret 1767. The wife’s name matching on both continents is what ties the Edenkoben groom to the Dover founder. George holds 120 acres on the 1779 tax roll — the same roll as brother Philip — and dies ~1780; the “Welty Widow” (80 ac) on the 1780 roll is most likely Anna Maria.
The one asterisk on an otherwise single family: George’s ~1716 baptism sits in the same Edenkoben household as his brothers, yet his descendants’ Y-DNA is I1, not R1b. On paper and in life this is one German family — George was raised as Hans Jacob’s son, married from the same house, and stood his own parents up as his son’s godparents — so the working read is a paternity break somewhere at or above George, not a separate founding clan. His descendants become the Manchester branch.
Manchester Township, 1780s – 1900s. The branch’s main spine stays put for five generations: Johan Jacob (1750–1826, m. Anna Maria Schramm at First Trinity, York, 15 May 1775 — register-verified) → Philip Jacob (1780–1835, m. Catherine Knaub; bur. Lehman’s Cem) → Jacob (1814–1901, twin brother Daniel; m. Rebecca Weigle) → Henry (1861–1919, m. Elizabeth Kauffman) → kit #102132, genetically welded to the same spine.
Johan Jacob’s 1826 intestate estate (admin bond II-089; $843.42 distributed): the Orphans’ Court petition names his complete second generation: Philip (the spine), John, Elizabeth (m. John Miller, 5 children), George (d.1819 — whose own will names “my father Jacob” and “my two brothers Henry and Philip,” paper-proving the joints), and Henry (d.<1826, widow Mary). A second Manchester line (Henry b.~1803) later went to Clark Co, Ohio, independently confirming the branch’s I1 haplogroup.
The only colonial-era Welty wills in all of York County belong to this branch (George, 1819) and to the separate Swiss family (Peter, 1755) — two unrelated families, book-ending the same courthouse shelf.
The Swiss family was already here. By the time the Germans reached Dover, the unrelated Emmental (I2b) Wälti line had been in Manheim Township, York Co since the colonial era — and one of only two colonial-era Welty wills in the whole county is Swiss Peter Welty’s, dated 1755. On the 1779 Dover tax roll the Swiss household sits on the same sheet as Philip and George Welty — the first of several times these two unrelated families would overlap on the ground. (Manheim, one n, in York Co — not Mannheim in Baden.) Their branches to North Carolina and Ohio are traced in the Old World chapter above and the Ohio chapter below.
Philip Jacob in Dover, 1779 – ~1789. The direct line reaches York last. Philip Jacob farms 100 acres in rural Dover (taxed 1779–1783 — PA Archives 3rd ser. vol XXI). The tax rolls carry a land fingerprint of a father settling his sons: in 1782 his 100 acres drop to 80 while a new “Jacob Welty, 80 ac” appears beside him and Michael holds 44; in 1783 “Weldy Phillip 100” and “Weldy Jacob 100” sit adjacent. The ~1787 return (coll. 2497) has John at 80 ac with zero livestock, Jacob at 10 ac with a team, and Philip in Dover town with a house + two lots — all in one alphabetized return, so adjacency there proves nothing. He’s gone by the 1790 census: death bracketed ~1788–90. No will, no administration, no recorded deed, no grave in any York index — the informal family transfers explain the empty estate. And he never remarried: the register’s only “Philip Jacob” marriage (× Anna Maria Wild, 1780) belongs to a third Philip Jacob (b.1759, d.1813 Conewago) — who is also the “Welty, Phillip” of Newberry Twp in the 1790 census.
Michael in Dover & York, 1779 – 1789. He appears as a single freeman 1779, holds 44 acres by 1782, serves in the York militia as a private (pay certificate #12,706, £10.10.0 — the family “Lieutenant” tradition isn’t supported), and marries Christina Ruthrauff at First Trinity Reformed, York, 18 May 1784 (register transcription, Ancestry coll. 4946, event 7965 — corrects the pedigree’s “10 May”). Christina — baptized at Quickel’s (Conewago), daughter of Johannes & Anna Barbara (Hoffman) Ruthrauff — grew up close by: her father farmed 195 acres on the same 1779 Dover roll. The family letter tradition (1897, preserved in Hoover’s 1925 history, ch. XIX) says the couple “wedded without consent.” An unpublished DAR typescript (GRC ser. 2 vol 170, p.149) puts Michael and Jacob Welty in the same York militia company — fresh, direct support for the brother pairing.
Michael didn’t marry alone: First Trinity’s register holds eight Welty marriages 1775–85 (Elizabeth × Gauf 1775, John × Hilienfritz 1783, Christina × Messerle 1784 — five weeks before Michael — Catharine × Boehm 1785, and more). Working hypothesis: a sibling set, children of Philip Jacob’s 1754 marriage, tangled with Manchester-branch kin — each marriage still needs a family assignment.
A soldier at the same altar — 17 Aug 1783. Five weeks and a year before Michael’s wedding, at the same First Trinity Reformed church in York, John (Nicolaus) Welty — the R1a Continental soldier of the German Regiment — marries Margaret Ilgenfritz, a Dover girl and one of the Edenkoben family’s own neighbours. Same register, same decade, same town — and yet R1a cannot share a paternal ancestor with Michael’s R1b line. This is the single cleanest collision on the page: two men named John and Michael Welty, marrying at one altar, from two families that had never been kin. His road to Tennessee is in the Greene County chapter.
A second R1b line at Conewago. George Welty of Conewago Twp (b.~1797) heads a genuinely separate R1b patriline — the same broad haplogroup as the Edenkoben family but a different subclade (R-L151, kit #19175), with no common ancestor in a genealogical timeframe. Only two Pennsylvania generations are visible — George and son John (b.1827) — before the family moved on through Sandusky OH to St. Joseph Co MI. Above George stands a brick wall: the baptism that would name his parents sits in Quickel’s access-locked Conewago register — the very book that also holds Edenkoben-family baptisms. One register, two unrelated families.
And a sixth: John of Cumberland Township. John Welty (b. 21 Apr 1760) serves in the York County militia 1780–81 and settles a 198-acre farm in Cumberland Twp — the “farm near Dover” John of the old lineage applications, and a different man again from every Welty above. His whole documented life sits on that one tract, which passed from York into the new Adams County at the 1800 split. His story — Catherine Weaver, three sons, and the Gettysburg house that still bears the name — runs on in the Adams County chapter.
The tangle, in one sentence: at least six unrelated Welty patrilines — Edenkoben R1b, Manchester I1, Emmental I2b, R1a, Conewago R-L151, and Cumberland — farming, worshipping, and marrying in one county, reusing Michael / John / Jacob / Philip across all of them. Two and a half centuries of grafted trees start right here.
Four of the York-country families never went to Ohio. Instead they turned south down the Great Wagon Road — into Maryland, the Shenandoah Valley, Tennessee and the Deep South — or simply stayed put on the Gettysburg side of the county line. Each gets its own country here.
The Taneytown / Emmitsburg Weltys (Roman Catholic, from Baden · Y-DNA untested) — immigrant John Welty (b.1722, Eppingen in the Kraichgau; ship Neptune, 1751) spent his first American decade in York Co PA, then settled the Piney Creek / Taneytown district of Maryland and died near Emmitsburg in 1817, aged 94 (DAR Patriot A122776). Eight children; branches ran back north into Dillsburg and Adams Co PA. Because Emmitsburg sits ten miles south of Gettysburg, this well-documented clan is the likeliest real-world seed of the Edenkoben family’s “Gettysburg brother” legend. The line is traced to Gen 6 — James M. Welty × Ellen Hobbs raised nine children at Emmitsburg (1880 census), among them Joseph Henry (b.1873), a DNA-confirmed ancestor of the family’s modern reconstructors. A descendant Y-DNA tester would settle several questions at once.
John (Nicolaus) Welty Sr. of Greene Co TN (Y-DNA R1a · kit #43635) — born ~1744 in the Palatinate, a Continental Army regular: the German Regiment, enlisted at Baltimore 1778 (DAR Patriot A203144, pension S39882). After his 1783 marriage to Margaret Ilgenfritz at York (above), he took the Great Wagon Road to Shenandoah Co VA (Forestville, ten children 1785–1805) and then Greene Co TN, where he died ~1838; descendants carried the line on into Indiana. R1a cannot share a paternal ancestor with any R1b, I1 or I2b Welty — the clearest single proof that York’s Weltys were several families who merely assumed kinship.
The Weldys of Goochland Co VA (Y-DNA R1b, R-DF49) — a documented Virginia family with no known connection to any Pennsylvania Welty: William Weldy Jr. (Hanover → Goochland) to George Weldy (~1752–1821), a Revolutionary War pensioner (S39883 — adjacent, by chance, to the R1a John’s S39882) whose 1821 will is signed “George Wildy.” Sons carried the name south — to Georgia and on to Washington Co AL, and via Albemarle to Perry Co MS. The family’s two tested branches both trace on paper to George, yet their Y-STRs differ far too much for true brothers — a non-paternity event hides in one of the two branches, and which one is an open question.
John Welty of Cumberland Twp → Adams County (no Y-DNA tester yet) — the Revolutionary-militia patriot introduced at York (b. 21 Apr 1760 – d. 30 Dec 1837, DAR Patriot A122777). He sat on the same 198-acre Cumberland Twp farm for his whole documented life; the 1798 U.S. Direct Tax shows him there, and the census finds him on the same land every decade to 1830 — the township passing from York to the new Adams County (Gettysburg) in 1800. He married Catherine Weaver (1776–1833) in 1789; documented sons are Henry (b.1805, × Eva Wert), Jacob (× Sophia Walter) and Solomon (b.1815), whose Gettysburg home became the storied “Solomon Welty House” of Cemetery Hill. A far branch runs west: Jacob’s son Elias (b.1821) fathered Dr. Francis Welty (b.1846), whose family kept a store at Dubois, Wyoming. Above John stands a brick wall: a 1908 application’s claimed parents are a disproven graft, and its “born in Switzerland” is a claim, not a record.
Michael moves west: Bedford Co by 1789, where son Philip is born 2 May 1789 (Milford Twp) and the 1790 census finds “Welty, Micael” — the only Welty in Bedford Co (the look-alike “Michall Wilts” of Newberry, York Co is a resolved decoy). On the 1796 Milford tax roll he’s paired line-by-line with a Jacob Weldy (b. before 1755) — a candidate brother: Jacob’s Cross Creek (Jefferson Co OH) descendants test R1b, 12/12 to the Edenkoben cluster’s kits (Welty Y-DNA project), and the DAR roster puts a Jacob in Michael’s own militia company back in York. Then Donegal Twp, Westmoreland ~1797–1807 — two townships from John Jacob’s Weltytown descendants — and a Saltlick Twp, Fayette stop. A fresh 1800 cluster surfaced next door in Fayette: “John Welly” of Bullskin Twp — adjacent to Donegal, ~10 mi from Michael — a live candidate for a brother tracking west.
Henry (b. 30 Oct 1790, son of Michael & Christina — birth record names both parents) stays in Fayette Co and marries Mary Byerly (b.1789, “of Lancaster county, of German descent”) on 16 Jan 1812. Nine children follow, incl. William (1816) and George W. (19 Oct 1823), both born in Fayette Co.
“Weltytown,” Mt. Pleasant Twp. John Henry takes the John-Jacob line to Mount Pleasant Twp, where the Weltys join the roll of leading German settlers (Overholt, Funk, Stauffer, Welty…) and grow numerous enough that the map still shows it: Weltytown, plus Welty Run (the only stream of that name in the US) and a Welty Road. The founding household: John Henry m. Eva Catherine (Stoner) Steiner, and Rev. Weber’s Reformed register records their children John (1793), Henry (1794), Ludwig (24 Jul 1796 — the match that ties the household to tested line #113729), Susanna (1798), Samuel (1800), David (1802), Elisabeth (1804), Daniel (1806).
The reunion zone: the two R1b branches become neighbors again ~1797–1810s — Michael in Donegal, his eldest son Philip b.1789 settling in Mount Pleasant itself, and the Overholt family shadowing the Weltys the whole way (Philip marries their daughter Sarah 9 Jan 1816). This convergence is the best place to look for a record naming both branches together.
Two Manchester sons scatter. While the direct line pushes west, the Manchester (I1) branch throws off two migrating sons who reappear far away. Philip Jacob b.1759 (m. Anna Maria Wild 1780, d.1813 Conewago, bur. Quickel’s) — the man behind the “alive in Newberry 1790–1813” records that once masqueraded as the Edenkoben immigrant — founds a branch that runs to Steuben Co, New York. And Henry b.~1803 (m. Mary Catharine Coleman 1827) carries the I1 line to Clark Co, Ohio. Both threads are picked up in the Far Offshoots.
Frontier Ohio repeats York County a generation later: unrelated Welty families, drawn by the same cheap land, converge on the same handful of counties and end up neighbors all over again. The direct line lands in Tuscarawas, the Swiss line farms the tract next door, and two more unrelated Weltys settle within one Wyandot County.
Crooked Run, Dover Twp, Tuscarawas Co, ~1810 – 1815. Michael got his Crooked Run farm the frontier way: Abraham Forney entered the two quarters under the credit act and Michael bought his equitable interest before Forney’s death, exactly as the 1884 county history says: “Forney… entered a farm on Crooked Run, which he sold to Michael Welty.” He dies in early Sep 1815 — the traditional 9 Sep is doubtful, since the administration docket opened 7 Sep and administration cannot precede death — intestate; inventory shows a working farm. The 1897 letter (recovered in Hoover’s 1925 history, ch. XIX) places Michael’s grave slab at the Pleasant Hill Schoolhouse ground at Blicktown. The 1819 guardianship (six minors) and the 1828 partition tie every child to Michael, Henry named as heir: “Henry Welty (son), resides Fayette Co PA.”
The two lines touch again: the 160-acre homestead held from 1813 beside Michael’s farm belonged to the Swiss-family Abraham→Jacob Welty — an “Uncle Jake” by neighborhood rather than blood, and the second place the two unrelated lines overlapped on the ground (the first was that 1779 Dover tax roll).
Stark County — Sugar Creek & Wilmot, 1820s – 1851. Two of Michael’s sons converge here. Philip b.1789 (m. Sarah Overholt 9 Jan 1816) farms at Wilmot until his death 11 Sep 1848; his descendants carry kit #98367, the pedigree that cracked this whole tree open. Henry brings his family from Fayette Co in 1833 to Sugar Creek Twp. He dies 8 Oct 1842, intestate; the 1850–51 partition of his estate names George as co-heir with the full register-matched sibling set — the primary record proving Henry → George. Henry’s son Dr. William Welty (b.1816), whose 1902 autobiography independently confirms the whole Henry generation, took a parallel branch to Nevada, in Wyandot Co.
The Swiss line spreads through Ohio too. The Emmental (I2b) family we met on the 1779 Dover roll fans out across the same state: to Fairfield & Hocking Co OH — the branch that produced the novelist Eudora Welty, and ran on to Jackson MS — and, by a fresh 1846 emigration straight from Bagischwand, to Pandora in Putnam Co OH. Same surname, same decade, same state as the direct line; no shared grandfather within reach.
Two more Weltys in one Wyandot County. Late in the century, the Swiss haplogroup-G clan finally reaches America: immigrant Johann Gottlieb Wälti (b.1861, Saanen — the eleventh generation down from Anthoni of 1568) settles at Upper Sandusky, Wyandot Co OH — the very county where the Edenkoben line’s own Dr. William Welty had settled at Nevada. Two unrelated Welty families in one rural Ohio county: the Wyandot echo of the York pile-up. And the Conewago R-L151 line passes through the same corner of the state — George’s son John (b.1827) moved on through Sandusky before the family reached Michigan.
Hicksville, Defiance Co, ~1860s onward. The direct line’s last Ohio ground: George W. Welty (1823–1891) settles in Hicksville; m. (1) Elizabeth Frease 1853 (son Frank Frease Welty — a long-standing research trap), (2) Sallie Jones 1862. His Y-DNA lives on as kit #402746 (Y-67), the strongest test in the cluster. Son Austin (1869–1938) m. Martha Kyle 1905; his 1938 death certificate names both parents. Grandson Robert Warren (1909–1961) — born on a family detour to Mount Vernon, Illinois, raised and buried in Hicksville — had four children, including Alan Sprow (below). William’s own son Dr. S.F. Welty and grandson Dr. Scudder became Hicksville’s benefactor “Dr. Welty” family.
Steuben County, New York, 1840s – 1900s. The Manchester son Philip Jacob b.1759 fathers a branch that migrates via his grandson George (b.1819; m. Jane Paul 1843, Elmira) to Jasper/Troupsburg, Steuben Co NY — traced seven generations to participant A-1. Clark County, Ohio hosts the other Manchester offshoot, the Coleman line (Henry b.~1803 → a living tester) — genetically welded to the Manchester spine.
Adams County, Indiana. Michael Jr.’s candidate arc (b.3 May 1796, m. Barbara Mumma) ends at Decatur, Adams Co — per Fretz 1903, corroborated by the Decatur cemetery cluster; the move reads post-1830.
Cripple Creek, Colorado. A far-flung echo of the family: Michael’s son George (1792–1865, “Pikes Peak or Bust”) fathered Levi Welty (1825–1902) — the rancher whose camp mishaps named Cripple Creek; Levi’s son Alonzo became the boom town’s pioneer liveryman.
St. Joseph County, Michigan. The Conewago R-L151 line has its own far offshoot: after George (b.~1797) and son John (b.1827) passed through Sandusky, the family settled in St. Joseph Co, MI — the end of the only trail we can follow for this second, separate R1b family.
Dr. Alan Sprow Welty (1937–2009), Robert’s son, born Hicksville; taught oral surgery at Univ. of Pittsburgh 1963–67, then ~30 years as an orthodontist in Owosso, MI. Buried back at Six Corners, Hicksville. He had four children; the family’s direct Y-line runs through his living son.
Alan’s living son carries the direct Y-line — the living Y-DNA candidate. A Big-Y on him (or on a living cousin, whose Big Y-700 order is confirmed in the project pipeline) is the keystone test that would convert the top of this tree from paper to proof. The compiler of this research log is a living descendant of this line — and the reason this page exists.
Everything above is held together by two kinds of evidence — the paper trail and the Y chromosome, which passes father to son almost unchanged. Where the registers ran out, the FTDNA Welty project did the sorting the churches couldn’t: it split one crowded surname into at least eight genetically distinct male lines, and it is the reason this page can say, flatly, that the men who married at one York altar were strangers by blood.
The lines and their signatures: the Edenkoben German family is R1b (R-M269), carried today by kits #98367 and #402746, with a keystone Big-Y still to land; the Manchester branch that grew out of it is I1 — a paternity break hidden inside one German household. The Emmental / Manheim-Ohio family is I2b; the Conewago family a second R1b, subclade R-L151 (kit #19175); the Greene Co TN line is R1a (kit #43635), which alone rules out any shared father with the rest; the Goochland Weldys are R1b, R-DF49, with an unresolved non-paternity event between their two branches; and the Saanen → Upper Sandusky clan is haplogroup G (kit #161609), a world apart. The Cumberland / Adams family has no tester yet — it is shown separately not because DNA divides it from the others, but because the records do. If you are researching a Welty, Weldy, Welday or Wälti line, it is as likely to be one of these as the Edenkoben one.