Thrift shop reunites family with 1870s marriage certificate hidden behind a painting–
149-year-old marriage certificate got reunited with its rightful owner….
The following written content by Cortney Moore
A couple’s marriage certificate from 1872 has made its way home to their surviving descendent, and it’s all thanks to sleuthy social media users.
The 149-year-old certificate, which belonged to William Deworth and Katharine “Katey” Havey, was found inside a picture frame that held a painting of a young girl and dog, according to Karmen Smith – the executive director of Hope Harbor Home Inc.
The painting had been donated to one of the organization’s Hope Chest Thrift Store locations in Bolivia, North Carolina, which aims to serve survivors of domestic violence and their families.
Staff at the Bolivia location alerted Smith about the certificate after they discovered it in the frame during their sanitization process in late July, Smith told Fox News.
She went on to snap photos of the painting and certificate and shared the images on Facebook in hopes of finding a surviving relative.
Family and storytelling have “always been incredibly important” to Smith, and those feelings are what led her to seek out the certificate’s rightful owner.
“I have very concrete memories of my grandfather telling me story after story about family [members],” Smith said. “I think it’s just so beautiful because it really gives you that realization that your parents, even though you’ve only known them the time that you’ve been alive, they had this whole life before you.”
Despite the font being worn down, locals who came across Smith’s Facebook post pitched in to help her search. Many social media users combed through public records and family search websites, Smith said.
The volunteer who successfully found Deworth and Havey’s living descendant was genealogist Connie Knox, who used Ancestry.com to conduct her own independent search, according to Smith.
Knox and several others messaged Irene Cornish, 65, the great-granddaughter of Deworth and Havey. She came forward on Aug. 9, and confirmed that the marriage certificate did belong to her family under the Facebook post Smith shared. Read more from F.N.
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