Church Document Translation Come Home to Roost!

Remember those Congregational Church documents a while back and how the kind Maureen of Wales translated the pages? No... OK, so here it is from the top.

Aunt Betty was given the originals of the founding documents for the Frostburg, Maryland, Welsh Congregational Church, drafted 1873. Mom is on a Wales mailing list and put out a call to anyone willing to translate. Maureen replied and said that she was working on a project about Welsh founding church documents anyway, so to the good all around!

Meanwhile, I was visiting Mom and she was having fits trying to get the copies of the documents to Maureen and thinking about snail mail. I said, oh no, I'd just take a picture with my cell phone and send it to her (Mom's) email inbox and she could forward it to Maureen. Done deal!

Maureen did the translation but noted that page 4 was missing. I thought I'd messed it up and went on a wild goose chase tracking it down only to be told later by Aunt Betty that page 4 was in English and didn't need translation and that's why it wasn't included. About to drive me nuts!!

Just today I received an email from a woman in London saying that she'd read my post and thinks that her ancestor, Rev. Isaac Thomas, was the first pastor of that church! Oh yes he was! I checked the files on my computer and attached them to the reply to her... of course I couldn't wait to forward all to Mom and Aunt Betty!! Hey, maybe she's related because we have Thomas people on our own tree...? Mom? Aunt Betty? Is she kin?

Anyway, it caused me to notice that this blog doesn't have my email address because the woman in London had to Google and email me through my artist's web site. So there ya' go. I put it up on the right hand side there as I should have done from the start. It never once occurred to me that I might write something that someone would want to contact me about... such a newbie! Ha!

GG Grandmother Dianna Thomas Price, abt. 1832 - 1871

The Welsh Congregational Church Founding Documents

Aunt Betty, mentioned below, received into her care the original founding documents of the little Welsh Congregational Church on Bowery Street in Frostburg, Maryland. It was written in the Welsh language of the late 1800s. See below.

Title page. Isn't that lovely to look at?

Now please understand that none of us speak Welsh anymore... time and distance having done their work. (However, now when I make copious spelling mistakes as I am likely to do, I will now say that I might be speaking Welsh. Who knows;)

Aunt Betty gave a copy to Mom. Mom has been to Wales and has daily email contact with a group of enthusiastic genealogists there. She put out a call to anyone willing to have a go at translating and Maureen responded!

Mom asked me to get an large envelope for her from the office so she could mail the copies to Maureen. In my gut a voice said, "no!" There has got to be a faster better way so that Mom can keep her copy.

So I whipped out my trusty cell phone (see post below about how my cell phone had just gone for a "swim") and took three pictures of the title page and first page. Then I emailed them to Mom's computer so she could forward them to Maureen.

And so that's what happened. By the time I got back to San Diego the next afternoon I found Maureen's translation from Welsh to English in my email box! Done!

Here's what Maureen wrote back:

"Hi Virginia,
Very good images. Yes I can translate, the writing is very easy to decipher. If you want to send more in this format that's fine.

The title page reads:
Independent Church,
Frostburg, Maryland,
Established in1873
Strange thing is that I have been translating the History of Independent Churches in Wales, county by county, for a volunteer project on Genuki. Could be of interest if we find where the church elders came from in Wales. I'll do the page you sent and mail it back.
Maureen"

What are the chances that Maureen is working on just such a project in Wales?! And of course between Mom and Aunt Betty the answers to the question, where did they come from, will be answered soon.

Church Picnic, 1935.