Homepage A Brief Early History What is the "Baltimore Hundred" & Where is Horntown? Druze Ancestry WILLIAM JAMES WELBURN CATHARINE A. WELBURN-BAYLIS-LOW HANNAH WELBURN-CONQUEST MARY ELLEN WELBURN-HOPKINS NANCY JANE WELBURN-OLIVER SENA ANN WELBURN-TYRE THOMAS ROBINSON WELBURN JAMES WELBURN MARIA ELEXINE WELBURN-WILLIAMS-SMITH MARTHA ELIZABETH WELBURN-WELDON SARAH M. WELBURN-SHORT ALICE ANITA WELBURN-RICKARDS ISAAC ALFRED WELBURN JOSHUA LONDON WELBURN Notable Kin Our American Family episode Authors 2008 Reunion Recap 2010 Reunion Recap 2012 Reunion Recap 2014 Reunion Recap 2016 Reunion Recap Reunion Slideshows 2008 to 2012 Reunion Albums 2014 to 2016

2008

Ocean City, Maryland

We Did It!

Coming Home: A Reunion for the Descendants of Mary Gray & George Welburn (2008) is in the history books! We a decent turnout. There was representation from every branch of the Welburns except for Uncle Joshua's (which I couldn't locate any living descendants) and Uncle Thomas's.

While it nice to know to know the effort was truly appreciated, I was not the only person on the planning committee. Everyone on the committee helped in some way and a debt of gratitude is owed to them as well. So let's give a shout out to Gillian Adkinson, Robin (Thomas) Chapolini, Lisa (Adkinson) Coalmon, Sally Davis, Hennie Purnell, Ruth Kelly, Tamika (Evans) Lee, Carol Short, Regina Short, Denise (Welburn) Summers, and Kendal Tyre Jr.

Friday, May 23rd... Just as predicted, there were a few "What are you doing here?" moments at the mixer and dance. It is still amazing the number of cousins who grew up in the same neighborhood and didn't know they were blood relatives. It was great to finally put some faces to the long list of names in my head.

Cousin Cynthia (Banks) Galloway was the winner of the Commerative Flag.

Saturday, May 24rd... Prior to the cookout, most of us posed for a group photo on the bayside beach behind the hotel. I say "most of us" because every time the photographer prepared to take the picture, 2 or 3 more cousins would come running down the beach to get in the shot. There were so many people in the sea of orange t-shirts that the photographer shot from a 3rd (or 4th?) floor balcony. Alot of folks are missing. (SEE ABOVE)

A HUMOROUS NOTE ABOUT THE COOKOUT: It's funny that the littler cousins could come together to dig the deepest hole in the sand and then proceed to make a game of jumping across it. Who needs TV & video games when you have cheap plastic drinking cups for digging? laughing

In the evening we had a mini-meeting to decide the when/where of the next reunion. After the meeting, the kids had an arts & crafts project. My husband mentioned, "I honestly think the adults had more more fun with it than the kids did." I'd have to agree. 

The family history exhibits included displays of 

  • DNA test results for Mary Gray's maternal ancestry & George Welburn's paternal ancestry (Thanks Clark!)
  • early histories of the Gray & Welburn families through the census & tax records
  • the complete Civil War Compiled Military Service Records & veteran pension files of William Oliver Sr., Mitchell Tyre Sr., Albert Weldon Sr., and William Welburn Sr.
  • Stanford family photos, memorabilia, and magazine articles

Sunday, May 25th... St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Berlin was packed. One-third of the congregation were Welburn cousins. We shared the Memorial Day Weekend worship service with the local American Legion lodge. As they read the names of deceased lodge members, I recognized several were also Welburn cousins. The gospel choir was ROCKING! I was blown away when our (my 1st) cousin Ashley Purnell sing.

Group Photo #2 (SEE BELOW) was a replay of the first except we were better dressed and indoors. Some cousins are missing from this photo as well. My husband joked that the stereotype of CP time is alive and well laughing . God Bless out photographer for being so patient with us.