You Can't Ignore the In-Laws - a long lost relatives success story!

Every few weeks, I go through the photo album that belonged to my great-grandmother, Mary (Minnie) Welch Kelly, who began her life in Connecticut and moved to Nebraska as a young woman in her twenties. That photo album, along with her autograph book and the autograph book of her sister, Nellie Welch, gave me the first real clues to the relationships in the Welch family.

An earlier post on this blog back in January shared my success in identifying members of the Garrigus family - one of Minnie's other sisters, Agnes Welch, married Clarence Gregory Garrigus and they had two children, Alfred and Ethel.

Just last weekend, I discovered obituaries of Clarence and Agnes in the Hartford (CT) Courant newspaper. I knew that Clarence was an inventor as I had discovered one of his patent applications online. His obituary states, "With his wife, Mrs. Agnes Welch Garrigus, he developed the Universal Breadmixer in 1903. The couple used their kitchen as a laboratory."

The obituary goes on to say, "During the World Fair in St. Louis, Mo., in 1904, he passed out bread samples made from the recipe of his wife, who used the new mixer."

The bells in my head started to go off and I returned to great-grandmother Minnie's photo album once again.


Far right, Agnes Welch Garrigus with her son, Alfred Garrigus, at the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904.

I had previously identified Alfred from two other photographs in the album, so this elegant woman with him in the St. Louis photographs has to be his mother, Agnes Welch Garrigus.


Agnes Welch Garrigus and Alfred Garrigus

This photograph identifies the address of where the photograph was taken, but I haven't been able to determine what it says - yet.

This series of photographs in Minnie's album also includes the man who I believe is Clarence Gregory Garrigus.


Dan Kelly gives Clarence Garrigus a ride.

The photo album also includes photographs of the Garrigus family in Nebraska. I am inferring that the Garrigus family visited Agnes' sister, Minnie Welch Kelly, in Nebraska on the same visit to the West when they attended the World's Fair in St. Louis. In the photo above, my great-grandfather, Dan Kelly (Minnie's husband) is having a bit of fun for the camera by giving his brother-in-law, Clarence Garrigus, a ride in the wheelbarrow.

So - after all of these years, I am able to begin identifying the other family members in Minnie's photo album. And this was because I located the obituary of Clarence Garrigus that told about the 1904 trip to the World's Fair in St. Louis.

Follow all of the leads and clues that come your way - and don't ignore the in-laws!