After the fire Uncle John's middle name seems to have been forgotten and appears several places as Hershland but in all the original records it is Herschell and is spelled that way in Grandfather's own writing in his Bible record of his children.
-William Ossian Milton, 1962
"I note that Aunt Kate's maiden name is used as a middle name for several of her descendants but is spelled McCurdy which, I admit is the common present spelling. In the days of my parents autograph albums were common. It was the practice to have your own friends sign their names in these. Aunt Celia (St.Clair) was quite a flashy young girl and had one of these albums, which I examined carefully and with great pleasure.
"Aunt Kate's signature appears there (more than once for some reason) but always as Catharine McKirdy, and that is exactly the way Grandfather entered it in his Bible record of Uncle John's marriage to her. I always had the impression that Aunt Kate was a highland lassie but I don't know why unless because of sentimental reasons or plain ignorance.
" She was born in Greenock, Scotland. In our early records it is spelled Grennock, I suppose just because it sounded like that. But the place was Greenock on the Clyde River. If you have a good map of Scotland, you will find it in the northwest corner of Renfrew shire, almost to the 5° meridian of west longitude and almost up to the 56° parallel of north latitude. That is certainly lowland country, which accounts for the fact that we have no clan name or tartan, which belong to the highland people.
"Aunt Kate's people lived at Keely's Corners about 4 miles east of Franklin on the road to Dempseytown. There is a good solid brick house there but the McKirdys lived in a rather small frame house up in the far back corner of the Keely lot."
-William Ossian Milton, 1962
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