Researchers have long accepted that Samuel WELCH, Rev. War soldier, 1762-1842
of Jefferson Co., Indiana,married Jane CUNNINGHAM. This was picked up by the
DAR, which is no longer accepting members of this line as will be discussed.
Jane's maiden name was in a letter from great-grandson Knox Jamison, reprinted
in the Book Welch and Allied Families.
I have long known that the family Bible shows Jane's name as CUNNING. I
thought they might have run out of room. However, a copy of the family page
from a 2nd, smaller Bible, that Welch carried into battle shows her as Jeaney
CUMMING.
In neither case is it Cunningham. In both cases, the dates match in 1797.
Looking at the large Bible, the letters are still plainly Cunning, but perhaps
someone used a different number of loops for the name to represent an M than
I' used to.
The DAR is no longer allowing descendants in because Jamison's letter also
shows
that Samuel was born in 1772. This is despite the fact the Samuel swore he was
14 when he served as a drummer boy, which puts his birth date at 1762. This
claim was accepted by the government and he was allowed a pension.
The small Bible does not give Samuel's birth date. The Big Family Bible does.
At best, the date is illegible. A case can by made that it says 1772 and a
case can be made that it's 1762. As there is a small tear on the date, I
theorize that the wrong date was wrong and someone tried to change it later.
Also, I must report that the WELCH family cemetery has been destroyed. The
farm passed out of our family after 181 years after my grandfather died and
the farm was sold in 1997. The Amish family living on the farm plowed up the
cemetery to enlarge its tobacco field. The original tombstone was destroyed in
the 1980s. The remaining DAR tombstone was apparently removed by the current
residents this year.