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.
