Lucky Charms
TWO MYSTERIOUS INSCRIPTIONS, believed to have been penned by Garrison Smith Welch (my 3x great grandfather), were found in a family Bible. The Bible sat in the home of one of Garrison’s great-grandsons—an 80-year-old farmer in Union County, Ohio (Robert E. Welch, d. 2010). When I first talked with him on the phone, he was surprised to learn that our Welches were believed to be of Irish descent, rather than German. Garrison’s father was Martin C. Welch, and according to the 1880 US Census, Martin’s father was born in Ireland. Old farmer Bob had figured they were German, because the inscriptions were written in some form of German. One of them was even signed...
Read more...Mysterious Dactylogram
ONLY SINCE THE 1890s has fingerprinting become a useful means of identification. That is not to say, of course, that no one had fingerprints before then! In fact, I have reason to believe that I have the thumbprint of...
Read more...