A LITTLE FAMILY HISTORY

Our Welburn family was established on October 4, 1832 when our great-great-great-grandparents applied for a marriage bond in Sussex County, Delaware.

GEORGE WELBURN is our patriarch. He was born circa 1808 in Accomack County, VA just 2 counties to the south. In all likelihood he was probably born a slave, but no manumission record for George has been discovered and he may have "strolled away" from his owner. Just prior to marriage he resided in Maryland (presumably Worcester or Somerset County). He appears by name in the Censuses of Sussex County, Delaware for 1840, 1850, 1870 & 1880. The woman we believe to be his mother, HANNAH WELBOURNE (born circa 1791), was a slave of Reverend Drummond Welbourne of Horntown, Accomack County, Virginia and was freed in June 1818. Despite the Virginia state law which required freed slaves to leave the state, Hannah remained in Accomack County. It is the opinion of some that Hannah was Drummond's child.

MARY A. GRAY-WELBURN is our matriarch. She was born circa 1816 in Sussex County, Delaware. Her father LONDON GRAY is listed as head of a "free colored" household in the 1810, 1820 & 1830 Censuses and appears in the tax records of Baltimore Hundred as early as 1803. Prior to this London Gray may have been counted among the household of Thomas Gray. Because of her physical appearance, the ethnicity of Mary Gray Welburn (pictured above) has been in question. DNA testing for her direct maternal ancestry in 2006 revealed an Eastern Mediterranean heritage. The specific geographic area and tribal affiliation will be discussed with Welburn descendants only.

George & Mary Gray Welburn owned a 30-acre farm, valued at $800 in 1880, which along with livestock produced eggs, indian corn, "irish" & sweet potatoes, butter, and molasses.

According to R.P. Fletcher, a Special Examiner of Military Pensions, the Welburns "belonged to a set of colored people, some 15 to 18 families, who have for many years resided in Baltimore Hundred (district or township) Sussex County, Delaware-- free born and not like the usual colored communities segregated, but living among and with the whites in nearly equal terms. As a result during the twelve or more years I have known these people I have found them frank and direct in their speech, showing none of the secretiveness and antagonism the colored people so often exhibit when dealing with the whites."