52 Ancestors, Week 3: Out of Place

Amy Johnson Crow, in her "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge, has as Week 3's prompt "Out of Place." 

Amy asks, "Have you ever found an ancestor in an unexpected location? What about finding a record someplace that surprised you? Or what about that one great-great-uncle who moved out West when everyone else in the family stayed put?"

So I decided to write about all of the above.

One difficulty in my family history research is finding out WHERE in England my great-grandmother Margaret Donley's family lived. Face it, it's not much help when on every record I found, it says merely "England." OOO-KAYYY. Fortunately, I found out about great-grandma's brother, who was nearly 20 years older. Robert Donlon used a different spelling of his surname, but he had the decency to use a consistent birthdate (thank you, kind sir!), and vital records state he was from Leeds. At last! Something to go on.

Before discovering Robert, I'd found a family in the 1885 Iowa State Census whose members seemed to match up with what Dad told me about his grandmother's family. Since the first mention of Maggie was at her marriage in Pennsylvania, I had no idea if this was the correct family as they were not in a place in which I expected to find them.

After discovering Robert, I found that he was also in the same Iowa county, married and with two children. That census suddenly became a more important puzzle piece. The Donley boys were coal miners and I don't know if they stayed put in one area, or criss-crossed the country, going to where the jobs were.

At least one of the brothers went out west.  This news item from 1915 mentions that Robert's brother James was visiting from Montana. The family is definitely a work-in-progress, although DNA is helping!

Under the "record I did not expect to find" category is a divorce record. My 2x great-grandfather, Henry Herrick, had married Rebecca MOLDEN/MOULDEN and I was checking newspapers for a marriage notice. I found a news item with both Herrick and Molden — but not the marriage I expected. Turns out Henry's sister Bell had married a Molden and it didn't work out. Bell's mother Jane Herrick was filing the suit. More work to do, for sure, as the 1868 divorce notice mentions Bell's husband William Molden, but an 1865 marriage notice says Bell was married to James Molden. In any case, in the 1870 U.S. Census, Bell is married to Jacob Miller and has a 3 month old son, John.

52 Ancestors, Week 2: Favorite Photo

 Week 2 of my pal Amy Johnson Crow's writing prompt, "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks," is "Favorite Photo." 

Do I have just one? Not that I can think of. Several stick in my memory, and when I finally get all my photos organized and scanned, then I'll be able to finally post them. Until then, this one brings me much joy.

My Aunt Joy once told me "We have a picture of your Grandpa Herrick when he was a little boy. It's part of a paperweight." For years, I meant to ask to see it. A year ago at Christmas, I was at my cousin's holiday open house. After everyone else had left, I asked her whether she received the paperweight after her mother had died. She didn't recall it specifically, but she kindly dug in a box in her study, and — there it was. I brought it back to her dining room table, around which my family had gathered several hours earlier.

It proved almost impossible to photograph — the smooth, curved glass reflected the lights over the table. I had no idea how the photo was set into the paperweight. Could it be removed? YES!! With shaking hands I picked up my iPhone and took the best photo I could of the photo of little Charles Lewis Herrick. Part of the original caption on the reverse is still visible. In ink: "17 months old" and "born 1894." Barely visible in pencil: "Charley Her" and "April 10th" which was Grandpa's birthdate. 

I wondered about the circumstances behind the paperweight. What had the photo originally looked like before it was cut to fit inside the recess in the bottom of the paperweight? Was the photo only of Charley, or were there several poses done at the time, perhaps with his parents? I have photos of Charley's mother, my great-grandma Margaret "Maggie" Donley Herrick McCabe. Of Charley's father, my great-grandpa Harry Herrick, I have no photos — yet.

52 Ancestors, Week 1: I'd Like to Meet...

For the past few years, my friend Amy Johnson Crow has featured a writing prompt called "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks." I've been bad about writing and blogging regularly (all you have to do is look at the dates of my previous posts, LOL!). This is the year I actually stick to it. I'm not getting off to a promising start, though - Amy's already posted prompts for Week 3, and here I am, blogging for Week 1. Oh well!

Week 1's prompt is "I'd like to meet..."  I’d like to have met my great-grandmother, Margaret Donley Herrick McCabe. Born in England, she and her family came to the US in the early 1880s.  She died in 1950, six years before I was born. So, I think I'll ask Maggie as if she were still here.

Margaret Donley
Herrick McCabe

• Did your family all immigrate to the U.S. together? Or did some of you arrive first, and the others followed? When and from where did you arrive in the U.S.?
• It appears that your family lived in Iowa in 1885. How did you wind up in PA in 1893? Where did the other family members go?
• How did you meet Harry Herrick? He had been in Texas, and returned to Washington, Pennsylvania sometime around the death of his grandmother Jane. Was it a love match? A one-night stand? 
• When and why did you and Harry split? Did you formally divorce? (I hope so, because you later married Robert McCabe, so...) When and where did you and Harry divorce? Did you ever have contact with him again? When did you divorce McCabe (or did you)?
• Was Julia Donley a sister of yours? If so, why do I not find any connection between her and her siblings?
• Most importantly, who were your parents — John Donley and Katherine Kelley? Or Patrick Donley and Margaret Kelley?

So many questions; so few answers. Maggie, why did you use Donley, but your eldest brother Robert used Donlon? Speaking of Robert, why did my dad hear from his dad — your son — about various family members, but not a peep did Dad mention a Robert? Heck, Maggie, Robert even lived in East Palestine, Ohio, the town in which Dad was born. 

I'd love to know the answers to the most mundane questions. Did you speak with a British accent? What were your favorite foods? What kind of mother were you: the soft, nurturing kind? A hard-as-nails badass? What made you decide to leave Iowa behind and come to Chicago? What (or who) was here for you?

DNA and genealogical research will help answer some questions, but there will be others that go unanswered forever, and that's a shame.

Well, it's obvious that I haven't been blogging! I refuse to feel guilty; after all, that's why this blog is named as it is. I've been helping with some local Civil War research, doing some Unclaimed Persons stuff, finishing an Indiana Genealogical Society newsletter, preparing blog posts for FGS 2013 as part of the local publicity committee; creating and teaching Library Education Unit classes for library staff, doing a few presentations, and other matters.

On the research front in the past year, I was surprised to find Dad's great-aunt Kate (Katherine/Kathryn? Donelly Morgan) buried in East Palestine, Ohio (thank you, Find A Grave!). Dad was born there; his parents moved there to find work at the behest of Kate's son, Grant Morgan, who was Grandpa Charlie Herrick's cousin and best friend, and who is also buried in EP. So I don't know why it should surprise me to find Kate and Grant there, but it did. I don't know if Dad's family kept track of Kate in later years. 

Finding that helped lead to other records showing that Kate seemed to be married to Thomas Morgan. Grant is listed in various records as Thomas G. and Grant T... after his father, apparently. I'm guessing Kate & Thomas divorced, since I think Thomas appears in later censuses, while Dad knew Kate's husb (friend? Significant Other?) Louis/Lewis Henderson as "Uncle Lou." (Um, okay, was Kate the one who ate her dessert first, or the one who drove all the way from Chicago to Ohio, but didn't know how to back up? Or maybe she was both of them. The stories are mixing in my head.)

I may have even found g-gm Maggie and Kate's other sister, whom Dad called "Aunt Mary Liz" Bishop. Seems as though Mary Donelly married an Edward Curtis in Rock Island Co., IL, and had at least 2 children (daughters). I don't know what happened to Edward, but Mary later marries Rankin Bishop and they reside in Iowa with the Curtis girls. All this, of course, needs documentation, etc. I found the online stuff but of course have not gotten around to the nitty-gritty of documenting, charting, etc. because my name is Linda and I am a procrastinator. Still, it's further ahead than I was at this time last year, for which I'm grateful.