Hmm! The welsumers I had laid good size eggs. Not huge but not so small. They laid interesting color eggs- either like the terra cotta pots or an unusual shade of red.. many also had dark spots. The problem was they had very poor heat tolerance.. the roosters would drop dead from heat stroke when it got hot.. pullets did fine but some of the older hens did have problems with the heat.. had to give up on the breed.
Beard is pretty easy to get rid of- it's dominant so once you don't see it, it's totally gone. One way to tell on NN if they have beard gene or not is if their wattles are really small, but this works best on single combs because pea combs also reduce the wattles.. usually you can reasonably tell which ones have beards even if pea combed by checking the feathers on their faces.
Their eggs had good color and with the speckles in them ( the Welsuumers). We had a line before that laid mostly large eggs. These however must have come from a different line. Small eggs.
The most beards in my flock right now are on three hens that are EE/NN crosses that look like Easter Eggers. I suppose that is where the beards come from. Looks then like most of the chicks are theirs then. Doesn't matter because any pullets I'll be using for breeding more NN's.