Welch 1

I started my search of the Welches ~ associated with the Higgins-es and the Carrigans ~ with the Edward Welch at 387 First Street in South Boston. 

He is listed at 387 First Street in accessible Boston Directories in 1869 through 1886, and can be found easily enough in the 1880 census [1]:

Name	Age	Relation/Occupation	Birth place
Welch Edward	37, b. 1843	Works at roofing	Ireland
--Mary	30, b. 1850	Wife/ Keeping house	Ireland
--Hanora	4, b. 1876	Daughter	Mass
--Mary	18, b. 1862	Niece/ at home	Ireland

According to this record, Edward was born about 1843 in Ireland, his wife’s name was Mary, and he had a daughter named Hanora born about 1876 in Massachusetts.  Edward worked at roofing.

Easy enough, but then it got complicated.    

I still haven’t found Hanora’s birth record, having looked under the surnames Welch, Walsh, Welsh, Weltch, and Waltch.

I did find a “Joanna Maria Welch” born to an Edward and Mary in 1865, but this would be about eleven years before Hanorah was reported born on the 1880 census [2]. 

However, Joanna and Hanorah/Honorah could be associated names: 

“Sometimes, the translation can throw us off track – for example, Johanna meaning Jane, Jean, Johanna and also being translated as *Honora*” [3].

I even threw in Julia, Hannah, and Anna as possible given names, and searched through over thirteen-hundred names, from 1860 through 1880, for something that looked remotely promising, but my search yielded nothing, except for the Joanna born in 1865 [4].  

Neither could I find a marriage record for Edward and Mary that looked promising.

I then went to the 1870 census, knowing that Edward Welch appeared at 387 First Street in the 1869 Boston Directory. 

The only Edward I found at what I believe to be a First street address appeared on the same page as John Higgins the roofer [5]:

    

Name	Age	Occupation	Birth place
Welch Mary	60 [born about 1810]	Widow	Ireland
--Edward	35 [born about 1835]	Laborer	Ireland
--Mary	31 [born about 1839]	Works	Ireland
--Thomas	25 [born bout 1845]	Laborer	Ireland
--James	40 [born about 1825]	X -------------	Ireland

At this point, I suspected something might be amiss with the information recorded on the later 1880 census.  The difference in birth years for Edward is about a decade, and if the younger Mary is Edward’s wife, her years of birth are off by about a decade as well.    

And so, because searching for Edward, Mary, and Hanorah could be more time consuming than searching for the older widow Mary Welch born about 1810, my attention turned to her.  She may be Edward’s mother.  

And because she did not appear in the later census, she may have died at 387 First St. 

There were about 30 Mary Welches who died in Boston between 1870 and 1880, but not all were born around 1810, and not all were married [6].   

One of these women may have died at 387 First, and it may be possible to uncover who she was, and to whom she was married, etc.

Notes:

[1] 1880 U. S. census, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, population schedule, South Boston, enumeration district 685, p, 20, dwelling 99, family 223, line 34, Edward Welch household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 Marcy 2014), citing National Archives microfilm publication T9, roll 557. 

[2] "Massachusetts, Births, 1841-1915," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FXZC-BDG : accessed 24 Mar 2014), Joanna Maria Welch, 15 Sep 1865; citing Boston, Massachusetts, 80, Massachusetts Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 1428037.

[3] The quotation comes directly from From-Ireland.net

(http://www.from-ireland.net/irish-names/latin-names-in-english/  :

accessed 24 March 2014).

[4] Of course, my search was conducted in an index for the sake of efficiency and I did not examine actual record images.

[5] 1870 U. S. census, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, population schedule, Boston, Ward 12, p. 195, dwelling 849, family 1429, line 29, Mary Welch household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 March 2014), citing FHL film 552,146; citing  National Archives microfilm publication M593, roll 647.

[6] To arrive at the number 30, I used the Massachusetts Archives vital records search screen at (http://www.sec.state.ma.us/index.htm : accessed 24 March 2014).  I searched for all Mary Welches who died in Boston between 1870 and 1880.