52 Ancestors, Week 8: I Can Identify

As I catch up on posting as part of Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks," the theme for Week 8 is "I can identify."

I only WISH I could identify...

• all the photos in a photo album that belonged to my paternal grandparents. Most of the photos have no names. Are they kin, or merely family friends? (Tip: BE SURE TO identify the people in your photos and videos.)
• the actual first name of my great-great-grandfather. Was he John Donley, John Donlon, John Patrick Donlon, or Patrick Donlon?
• the actual first name of John's wife. Was she Katherine Kelley or Margaret Kelley?
• the origin of another great-great grandfather, John Speed. He was from England, and DNA matches to his line seem to point toward an ancestry in Somerset. But John himself left no clues that I've found — yet.
• the origin of 3x great-grandfather Henry Herrick, a coach driver who lived in Washington, PA. He was from New York, and that's all I know. (By the way, Henry, it'd be nice to know when you died. I'm just saying.)
• whether Lydia Speed born in 1866 in Peoria County, Illinois, is the same Lydia who ran away from a girls' school in 1881, and whether they're both the same Lydia who married James Tucker in 1887 in Sangamon County, and who died in 1901 in Chicago.

That process — the investigation — is what I like about genealogy. Finding that little nugget, that "Aha!" moment, that discovery that leads to the genealogy happy dance when the pieces all slot into place. 

52 Ancestors, Week 5: Oops

Week 5 of Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" prompt is "Oops." Mistakes can be costly. They can also be deadly, and the summer of 1892 was a doubly tragic one for my family.

Shot Himself in the Side

Charles Herrick was received at the Allegheny Hospital yesterday afternoon severely wounded by a gun shot. He gave his address as No. 32 Cherry street. He said he was with a camping party down the Ohio River opposite Shousetown, and yesterday afternoon went with a companion to shoot at blackbirds among the reeds in the river. His rifle trigger was caught in some matted grass, the weapon was discharged and the ball entered Herrick's side at the fifth rib. It passed upward and caused a very serious wound, which seems likely to be fatal. The man was brought to Allegheny on a Ft. Wayne train, but at midnight the surgeons had not been able to find the ball.

— The Pittsburgh Dispatch, Tuesday, August 16, 1892

"The Shot Was Fatal" read the headline in the following day's Washington (Pa) Daily Reporter. That article gives the location as Leetsdale, on the Ohio River 17 miles below Pittsburgh. It states that Charles accidentally shot himself while climbing over a fence. Marshall Lytle, one of his companions, had him placed on the train and taken to the hospital. Lytle, and Charles's brother and sister, were with him when he died.

Charles was about 15 or 16 at the time of his death. His parents had divorced several years earlier and mother Rebecca had died four years before. His father Henry was living elsewhere, and Charles and his siblings were essentially reared by their sister Daisy, about five years Charles's senior, and their brother Frank, who was about three years older than Charles. 

It's not known which siblings were at Charles's bedside when he died. The eldest brother, Harry, had gone to Texas sometime in 1892 or 1893 but returned before the summer of 1893, most likely due to the impending death of his grandmother, Jane (nee Wood) Herrick, who reared him and with whom he lived. 

In 1899, Marshall Lytle would go on to marry Charles's sister, Katherine. Harry married Maggie Donley in 1893 and their only child, a son (who was my grandfather), was named Charles — likely in memory of the uncle he never knew.

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