Catherine Carr Welsh

Last week I wrote about finding the maiden name of my second great grandmother Catherine Welsh. Well I have had another week of Genealogy Happy Dances with finds for John and Catherine Carr Welsh!

I had found John's death certificate on Family Search early this year and I knew by the 1900 Census that Catherine had died prior to 1900 but could not find a death certificate for her that I could say was it. I had one contender but the address was not one I had seen so I could not prove it. But it did say she was buried in Westminster Cemetery and that is where John's said he was buried. A few months ago I found John's burial information on Ancestry using the PA Town and Church records. They include the book, Record of Interments, Westminster Cemetery Co., Philadelphia, PA. So this past Wednesday I took a ride up there to see what I could find.

I found this to be a large cemetery on Belmont Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, just on the border of Philadelphia. So I found the office and went in with my information. I also had found information that the in-laws of my great uncle Patrick McCarry, the Gallagher's, were buried here also. So I wanted to find them. the lady in the office found the card for the plot owned by Timothy Gallagher in section Eleven first. This is a lot consisting of 4 graves and it listed all the burials for the parents and some of their children. I was shown on the map that their graves were about in the middle of section Eleven. The information I had about John was that he was in section Delta. She started to show me where I could find the grave in Delta when I asked her if there was anyone with John ( since I was hoping to find Catherine). She went to find the card for that plot. it was found but there was no John Welsh in there. When I read her the information I had she said that she would look it up with the permit number. She comes back with a record of a plot with 8 graves owned by John Carroll. This was also in section eleven. I found out later that I had mistaken the 11 for ditto marks under Delta that was above. In the book they go back and forth between writing the section as Eleven and 11. Well John was in grave 8 and with him is Caroline Walsh. She thought the Walsh instead of Welsh was a misprint, I also said that his wife's name was Catherine. She said that she wanted to check something else and came back with an index card with the same grave information but the name was Catherine Walsh. She said that since I knew her name to be Catherine that I should go with this. So I found where she was buried but this only gave interment and grave numbers and I was told that she had no way of finding out the dates. And there were no markers to look at! I thanked her for her help and the information and left. Before going home I went to section Eleven and looked around but there was nothing to find.

Last night I decided to look in the Cemetery record book page by page to find her and I did. Catherine died 21 Jun 1896 and it gave her address as 2441 Cresson St., Manayunk, Philadelphia. Looking at the death certificate I had, Cresson St. was the address but the number was 4441 not 2441. There are some other differences like her age but the death date and burial date, 24 Jun 1896 match. So I now finally have her death information.

On to the next problem to be solved!