His father emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1848; his mother was a native of Cincinnati.

He also visited that section of Kentucky in which Lincoln was born, giving special attention to the questions of his birth and descent, and traveled through southern Indiana amid the scenes of Lincoln's boyhood.

His daughter was the children's writer and world government activist Mary Hays Weik,[1] the mother of the author and illustrator Ann Grifalconi.

In 1892, Weik published a revised version of the book (Herndon had died in 1891) titled, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (New York: D. Appleton.

[2] Weik was also a frequent contributor to newspapers, his articles being devoted to certain phases of Lincoln's career and other contemporary historical subjects.