The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1872 marriage certificate mystery solved
The marriage certificate, weathered and timeworn, was barely legible. What was somewhat clear, though, was the date: April 11, 1872.
Employees at a thrift store in Bolivia, North Carolina — a tiny town with a population of less than 200 people — crowded around the nearly 150-yearold document, which had been tucked away in the back of a picture frame that was donated in late July. The framed picture was of a girl placing flowers in a dog’s collar. Employees were puzzled.
“Why was it hidden? Was it a forbidden love? Was this maybe a situation where they wanted to secretly get married? Immediately, my curious mind went into overdrive,” said Karmen Smith, executive director of Hope Harbor Home, a domestic violence program and shelter.
Given that the donor of the frame did not get a tax receipt, “we didn’t have any information,” said Smith, 30.
She was determined to dig into the mystery.
Smith decided to put out a plea on Facebook. Although the document clearly featured only the first names of the New Jersey couple — William and Katey — she was hoping to track down their descendants and return the marriage certificate.
Although many people reached out with clues, a local genealogist stumbled upon the story, and before long, she began to connect the dots.
Connie Knox was at her home in Wilmington, North Carolina, when a story about the 150-yearold marriage certificate was featured on the local news.
“Being a genealogist, my ears just popped up,” Knox, 60, said. “I realized there’s enough information
to research it. To me, that is kid-in-a-candy-shop kind of stuff. I couldn’t resist.”
So began her genealogical quest, which yielded surprisingly swift results, considering the limited information she had to begin with. Knox started her search on Ancestry.com, and cross-referenced names, places and dates that corresponded with the faded details on the marriage certificate. After tracing one of the witnesses on the document, she was able to draw some conclusions.
“It turns out the bride and one of the witnesses were school mates in a school document I found,” said Knox, who hosts a Youtube channel called Genealogy TV.
She determined that the bride was Katharine Havey Deworth and her groom was William Tindall Deworth.
Once she was confident that she had found the correct couple, “I had to start tracing forward to figure out who was the most direct descendant,” Knox said. “That’s when I found Irene
Cornish.”
Cornish, 65, was at her home in upstate New York when she spontaneously decided to log on to Ancestry.com.
What led her there, she said, “was an unusual series of events,” as she doesn’t regularly visit the website.
Cornish — who is also interested in genealogy — was hoping to do some research about her great-uncle on the other side of her family, when she noticed she had several messages on Ancestry, including one from Knox.
She zoomed in on a photo of the marriage certificate and, upon close examination, was able to decipher the full names.
“I knew it was my great-grandparents,” she said. Considering the date and the fact that it was issued in Bordentown, New Jersey, “everything fit.”
Cornish isn’t sure why the marriage certificate was hidden, although she suspects that since safe-deposit boxes were not common back then, a picture frame would have been a good place to preserve important documents.
Either way, she was elated to hear about the existence of the marriage certificate, and she hopes the publicity surrounding it will help her connect with distant relatives who might have more information about her lineage.
On Aug. 22, Cornish flew to Wilmington and drove to the thrift store the next morning, where she met Smith and Knox to retrieve the long-lost marriage certificate.
“It was so exciting to be with Irene. She had a permanent smile on her face,” Smith said. “The second the certificate was handed to her; she just broke down in tears. The realization that this was officially in her possession struck her all at once.”
Indeed, holding the 150-yearold document for the first time “was very overwhelming,” Cornish said. “I’m still in shock that the document even exists, let alone that it was located and ... I was able to find out about it and actually get it.”
Meeting the women who helped reunite her with a piece of her family’s past “really touched my heart,” she said. “They all feel like family somehow.”
Cornish, who doesn’t have children, intends to frame the cherished document, and eventually she hopes to donate it to an archive association or the Bordentown Historic Society. She also plans to make several copies, which she will mail to all her living relatives.