11 July 2000
5518 Revere Drive,
Salt Lake City, Utah, 84117

Lt. Commander Scott Kirk
1907 Oakshire
San Antonio, Texas, 78232

Dear Lt. Commander Kirk:

As I promised I have given your account a rest of six months and now have reviewed the entire file, reading all my research notes and correspondence notebooks to see if anything new could be tried on your various family lines.

In the first place as I stated previously after reading all of the photocopies and the phone conversation with your cousin, we have done much of the same research.  All the books which copies were sent to me from his work, I had already checked but one on Albemarle deed abstracts.  In addition I had done the original deeds indexes and probate indexes in all counties where the name of Kirk had been shown from Ratcliff's tax lists abstracts or Fred Olds abstracts North Carolina deeds, North Carolina Colonial and State Records index, etc.  There were no early Kirk probates in the Mitchell large index to North Carolina wills from earliest through 1900.  No Kirks in any county in the l760-1800, probate abstracts by Fred Olds, Gen. Publishing.

In addition I checked for the name Womach for wills in North Carolina and sent you a copy of those abstracts which dealt with Abrahams.  Also located previously, a will in Georgia for an Abraham Womach and sent you a copy of that also.

Your last known Stephen Kirk was dead by 1822 in Georgia in Jones county according to documentation which I located for you when his wife and some of his children acted to settle his estate in deeds.  There was a Stephen in Hancock county, Ga. with a wife, Elizabeth McClendon and not Anna.   The Stephen of Hancock county first appears there in l780's with McClendons.  Also a Stephen appears with MCClendons in Wilkes county a  little earlier than when the Stephen of Hancock is there.  I searched for marriages in all of those places and didn't find the Stephen who married the Anna or the Elizabeth McClendon. 

I have found many deeds in counties in Georgia mentioning Kirks.  I found your Stephen mentioned with wife Anna in Jasper county, deeds in Georgia as well as Jones.

General indexes to early Georgia wills searched for Kirk's and other family names.  Leon S. Hollingworth Collelction of Georgia genealogy searched for all family names and a references on film 1322496 Stephen Kirk, wit; deed Bute (forerunner of county of Warren) county 1777 by heirs of Richard F (name not completed) to Edward Lewis.

Bute county Warren count, North Carolina Court Pleas and Quarter Sessions, 975.65P28h, pg. 96  Jury 13 Feb 1771 George Kirk, James Alford and others.  Pg. 244  William Hansell 14 May 1777 acknowledges deed to John King Rosser and Stephen Kirk.

Same book pg. 103 Lewis Kirk overseer of road 14 May 1771.

pg. 249 Deed 15 May 1777 from Jacob Fox, Richard Fox, John Hendrick, Amey Hendrick, Joseph and Sarah Price proved by Stephen Kirk.

Ratcliff's N. Car. Taxpayers, volume two shows George Kirk in Bute county in 1766.

In reviewing the Orange county and other neighboring county references which I have previously searched including original deed and probate indexes there were no Kirk early probates.

Earliest Orange county reference in court minutes a Joseph Kirk with to help pay out road with Richard Braswell and others Aug 1760 from Robert Patterson's plantation to Collings fork on Haw river.

John Kirk, Richard Kirk,  and George Keark mentioned in Orange county court abstracts from l764,1766.  Earliest mention of Steaphan (their spelling) Kirk as a juror 1784 and also on another jury same time frame Lewis Kirk.

In Pleas and Quarter Session court abstracts Orange a Lewis Kirk is assisting in laying out a road in 1788.

Land Entries abstracts Orange county previously check showed #913 C Stephen Kirk 29 Dec 1778, 100 acres waters Little Cain Creek of Haw River, #1407  Stephen Kirk enters 100 acres 10 Nov 1784 waters Haw River.

In Orange county wills abstracts there was a reference to a deed of gift in Orange county  Stephen Kirk to Son, Jesse 22 Oct 1783 Wit; Wm. Kirk, Lewis Kirk.  Stephen Kirk to Son, Thomas Kirk, 22 Oct 1783, same witnesses as above.  This Stephen cannot be your Stephen who was born according to early census abstracts in Georgia in about 1770's.  With Jesse and Thomas being of age to receive land they would have to have been born by 1762 or before so this Stephen is too old to be yours.  

The Stephen of Hancock and Stephen of Jones counties in Georgia could be the same person, but if they were then he had more than one wife and no marriages located for either?  Unless your Anna is Anna Elizabeth McClendon.   If not same Stephen then we have two Stephens about same generation in counties bordering each other before 1790 in Georgia.

All early deeds mentioning Stephen Kirks of Wilkes county, Hancock county, Jasper county, Jones county, Greene county, Washington county all searched by myself for all Kirk materials from earliest in those counties into the 1860's.  Some Baldwin county references could be checked but not much because I have already started to search there and didn't find anything, though one of the Stephen's in a deed mentioned that his land was originally in Baldwin county.

I looked today into the Quaker Cane Creek Meeting house records, Orange county, North Carolina, filmed originals, 371,251.  Read page by page through 1787 from 1750's and found no Kirk's at all. This is only older church record our library has for Orange county in the critical time frame that we need.

If you wish I could do a history for Orange county only type of book I haven't had time to check and see if any early Presbyterian churches in county that I might could order records from the archive in Monteat, N. Carolina for you.  If no early Presbyterian church records for your time frame organized in Orange then we would be out of luck for locating more on the early Kirk's there.  No indication the early Kirk's were Episcopal church members.

I have been reading the book which you gave me now that I have my walls ready to paint in the living room as soon as my turn comes up with my painter.

There is a series of genealogy on file at the archives in Raleigh our library has on film, the surnames are alphabetical

on the films.  I could see if there are any Kirk's in that series but there may not be.  I have checked the series for several other clients and so far their surnames were not represented.

The Andrea Collection of South Carolina genealogy compiled by genealogist Leonardo Andrea, I have searched many time and there is a book which indexes the surnames featured in the filmed series.  I could check that index and see if the Kirk name is mentioned.  The nature of the folders which are filmed is a slow process to track down all possible families.

I did find a Stephen Kirk in York and Chester counties, South Carolina in early census, then I went for you into the probate records and have reported that to you. 

A Previous researcher who compiled a book on Kirk's which I sent you previously in an earlier report claimed the Stephen of Orange is same one of York and Chester and Georgia, but this is not possible.  One of Stephen's died in  South Carolina.  Other Stephen is still in South Carolina in Chester county in 1800 and 1810 when your Stephen was in Georgia before 1790's.  Could be the older Stephen from Orange and Bute counties in North Carolina, as that older Stephen and Lewis Kirk disappears before 1790 census.  The Stephen in 1790 in South Carolina could well be the older Stephen who gave his sons (two of them) deeds of gift, possibly before he was going to more to another area to live.

With a Lewis and Stephen together in early North Carolina records together, your Stephen could certainly be a possible child of either man.  However, in early records with this overview from previous research in Orange there was also a George, Richard, Joseph and Levi(1795) Kirk.

On the Barnes lines I could as previously recommended do some more census indexes for surnames of Barnes, Howell and Majors.  Also could order from Tenn. vital stats office the death Certificates of William Rod and his wife for you and hopefully that would give us their parent's names and therefore, more to check there.

I shall await your wishes in these various matters.  When additional would be found on the Barnes and related lines I could send you computer printouts of the family group sheets and also a disc from personal ancestral file program.  However, there is no capacity to run off a disc on this type of report.

     My E-Mail address is loladale@burgoyne.com.

                        Sincerely yours,

                        Mrs. Lola Sorensen/AG

p.s.  I did an overview of Cumberland county, Virginia books just to see if any Kirk's mentioned there.  None at all in deed indexes, either grantor(seller) or grantee(buyer), nothing in probate indexes, nothing in marriages.  However, lots of Womach's.  Early Abrahams and lots of Womach's in deeds, probates, etc.  An early Nathan Womach had a wife, Anna in deed indexes and his estate settled in deeds according to index.