August 24 (UPI) – A North Carolina thrift store in which a 146-year-old marriage certificate was found hidden as part of a donated painting presented the precious heirloom to the couple’s great-granddaughter.
Employees of the Hope Chest Thrift Store, a Bolivian business run by the Hope Harbor Home domestic violence shelter, found the 1872 marriage certificate hidden in a painting that was donated last month, and they launched a search to find family members of the couple. .
Employees could only make out the couple’s first names on the aging sheet of paper, but a Facebook post from Hope Harbor Home executive director Karmen Smith caught the attention of genealogist Connie Knox, who identified them. names like being William Deworth and Katey Havey.
Knox used Ancestry.com to identify the couple’s great-granddaughter, Irene Cornish.
Cornish visited the thrift store on Monday and received the couple’s marriage certificate in Bordentown, NJ.
“I still can’t believe it,†Cornish told WECT-TV. “I’m going to have it for my family – I’m so overwhelmed.”
Cornish speculated that his great-grandmother or grandmother hid the certificate in the photo frame to keep it safe, and an unconscious relative later sold the painting or gave it away.
“It’s a little overwhelming,†Cornish said. “It feels good to find this again. I’m still really in shock at how it happened.”
