Several years ago, I spent some time looking through land transactions, for information on the West Brookfield property owned by my husband's great-grandmother, Elizabeth (Cahill) Welch. I was fortunate enough to find this quitclaim deed with names and residences of her living heirs some of whom, were unknown to me at the time. Images of these land records are available online at http://www.masslandrecords.com. My research was done before an index was available online, so it took some time. Luckily, I had an approximate address of the property and was able to trace backward from recent property owners.
Elizabeth Cahill Welch was born about 1791 in Ireland. It is likely that she was born in Queens County, where her marriage, and the births of some of her children were recorded. Married in October of 1809 in Ballinakill, Queens, Ireland, William and Elizabeth Welch , had at least seven children born in Ireland between about 1813 and 1836. Listed on the first page of this document, the children were Eliza Malloy of Palmer, Bridget Fitzpatrick and Thomas Welch of Rutland, John Welch of Worcester, William Welch of Warren, and James and Michael Welch of West Brookfield.
Using this one document, I was able to make contact with a descendant who had research going back to Ireland. The history of this family, while not complete, now includes the families of all the above children with the exception of John. John lived in the city of Worcester as did a number of others with the same or a similar name. I believe he was born about 1813, and may have been the John Walsh enumerated in ED 883 on page 61in the 1880 US Census, City of Worcester, MA.
