Y is for Elizabeth Young

I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (April 2016), where we write 26 blog posts featuring each letter of the alphabet.

Y is for Elizabeth Young

Elizabeth Young was my 4th great-grandmother. She married Dempsey Welch on 21 Jan 1821 in Clarke County, Alabama. I scanned a copy of their marriage record from microfilm today.

1821 Marriage for Dempsey Welch & Elizabeth Young

Not long after marrying, Dempsey got land in Copiah County, Mississippi where they lived until their deaths.  They had possibly sixteen children, depending on the sources. I have records for seven known children.

Here is the only census record with Elizabeth’s name on it. In 1850 it was the first federal census that listed everyone in the household. Dempsey was a planter, not just a farmer, and his property was worth $2400. Perhaps they also had a large house and Elizabeth had household slaves. The Melissa A. that is 10 years old was my 3rd great-grandmother, who married James Madison Coor.

1850 Copiah Co, Mississippi population schedule for Dempsey & Elizabeth Welch's household

A 1852 tax list for Dempsey listed some luxury items: a pleasure carriage was worth $100. He had 1 watch and 2 clocks. He had 40 head of cattle and 1 stallion. Also listed were 37 slaves under the age of 60. By 1860, his estate was worth $15,000. I have no slave schedule for 1850, but in 1860 he had 12.

   

Elizabeth died on 1 July 1952. She was buried at the Welch Plantation Cemetery.  A book written in 1953 gave the cemetery inscriptions that can’t be read today.[1] Their tombstones read:

Dempsey Welch                               Elizabeth 

b. Dec 24, 1798                                Wife of Dempsey Welch

d. Dec 6, 1864                                  b. Jan 8, 1804 

                                                         d. Jul 1 1852

The end of Dempsey’s life was during the Civil War. He had no probate taken out in court in Copiah county that I can find. Perhaps there was either nothing left of the estate or he had already given away most of his property to his children. More research is needed to determine this. I do know that his daughter Melissa A. had some land that she sold to her husband. She might have inherited it.

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[1] Mississippi Genealogical Society, editor, Cemetery & Bible Records Vol 1 (Mississippi: n.p., 1954.), 44.

Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.