Aug. 13 (UPI) — A North Carolina thrift store at which a 146-year-old marriage certificate was found hidden inside a picture frame said the couple’s great-granddaughter now has been located.
Pam Phelps, an employee at the Hope Chest Thrift Store in Bolivia, said she was cleaning an antique 1889 print of a painting depicting a small girl and a dog when she found something hidden in the back of the frame.
The hidden paper, an 1865 New Jersey marriage certificate for a man named William and a woman named Katey, sparked a search for any living family members of the couple.
Irene Cornish said people who saw a WWAY-TV news broadcast about the discovery messaged her on Ancestry.com, suspecting the couple could be her great-grandparents, William and Katherine DeWorth.
“I haven’t been on Ancestry in quite a few months,” Cornish told WWAY-TV. “I actually went on to research a family member on the other side. And I happened to notice I had these messages.”
Cornish said she doesn’t know exactly how the marriage certificate ended up at a North Carolina thrift store, but she does know many family items were donated to second-hand stores.
“Sadly, the Old Homestead, the person that inherited that in the family, basically sold everything that was in it to a local thrift shop,” Cornish said, “and ultimately lost the home.”
Cornish said she plans to frame the wedding certificate and have it displayed, possibly in a museum.
“My mother passed away five years ago,” Cornish said. “I don’t have any … immediate family in the area where I live. I feel a little isolated at times. So, it just felt comforting that, oh, these people are reaching out somehow. I am connected.”