|
Byrd Paternal Line (including McKinsey & Mahan) Family Photos & History |
|
Above is William , Walter Raymond Byrd, I and Walter Raymond Byrd, II. In I believe the 1960s in or near Oklahoma City, OK. This is the only photo we have of all 3 of them and we haven’t any personal information on this family line. Please contact me if you have any information to share on this family line: tlk@howerfamily.com |
|
Above and immediate right are all pictures of Ray, or Walter Raymond Byrd, II. To the far right is his half brother William, or Bill Byrd. |
|
I am assuming the above photo was taken in the 1960s as well and as written on the back: Walter, Audrey Parks, Minnie McGee, Ruby Reed and Mary Lewis They are all sisters and brothers born to Thomas Monrow Bird/Burd/Byrd and Alice Emmaline “Kate” Greenlee Again, I have no information on these family members, but would love to hear from anyone who does! |
|
The above photos are of Carol Brandt, Ray’s little sister by his mother Marjorie’s second husband, Rip Brandt. Marjorie died and so Rip took Carol away to live with him. She became ill and died shortly after. |
|
After Ray’s mother died, his Grandmother Leota took him in and raised him. His Aunt Darlene was very close to him as well. Above is Aunt Darlene’s sons: Tim and Terry Allwine. |
|
Raymond married Roberta Ruth League @ Escalon First Assembly of God in 1951 (below wedding photos , baby pic, and high school photo) |
|
To the left is Neysia Meryle Byrd (b: Apr 1935). Recently I was contacted by her daughter-in-law who says that she is the daughter of Walter Byrd Sr. from Oklahoma. He had an affair with her mother and left, leaving her to be raised without a father. This makes her Ray and Bill’s half sister...unbeknownst to them. |
|
Above is the first two children from this union, Mike and Kathy. I haven’t finished scanning the photos yet and so the others will follow!
|
|
The Byrd Story
I had a difficult time tracing this line. Walter Sr.’s father was known to be Thomas Monrow Burd and his mother Alice Emmaline Greenlee. However finding them on census records was difficult. For Alice went by “Kate” for some unknown reason and Thomas was listed as TM quite often. Kate remarried after Thomas’s death, but I do not know whom she married.
Kate (or Alice) was a child born to Sarah Perryman and Francis Marion Greenlee. Below is a letter from Coyote Pons, a woman claiming to be the great great granddaughter of Kate, who shared this information with another researcher. It explains several things about Kate’s life. “ Francis was thunderstruck when he first met the lovely Sarah; however, he was married already to Vianna Cole (cousin to Zerelda Cole, future mother of Frank and Jesse James), and they had three children. FM quickly divorced Vianna, and married Sarah in 1872. After Sarah’s death, Grandma Mariana (Gilly-Perryman) kept Baby Alice. FM returned to Vianna in Arkansas, remarried her, and took her and the 3 children to Indian Territory up in the hills around Cowlington. Then he went back down into Texas and took his daughter (Alice Emmaline) and scuffled back to IT. Alice did return to Paris, TX for a brief time after the death of her first husband, Thomas Monroe Burd (Cherokee). She bought a house in town that had a little acerage. I met my Great Grandmother Alice and got to know her pretty well when I was 6 in Henryetta, OK. I can still see her toothless face. She had a great influence on my dedication to my searching. Her loving kindness was second to none.. <Ltr from GG Granddaughter Coyote Pons 11 Oct 1999)”
Kate (Alice) shows up on the census record at 8 years old with older and younger siblings. I say this because I found a Kate Greenlee in foster care in Texas (where she was born), however the age is incorrect by 3 years. I could never figure out why she was called “Kate”. She couldn’t have had a bad relationship with her father’s wife, because she named one of her son’s with Viannah’s maiden name (Fred Cole Burd). ************************ Thomas was more difficult. I found him with his parents and brother Benjamin in 1870 in Vineyard, Lawrence County, Missouri. His father James and mother Sarah Ann McKensie were on the 1860 census there as well ,with a Mary and Elizabeth, elder sisters of James. I could not find James on the 1850 Census records and he was only 15 at the time. There is a census in 1850 Lawrence County, Missouri, with Mary and Elizabeth on it, as well as their mother Elizabeth (born in Kentucky) and two other sisters named Nancy and Phebe (aka Fereby Caroline Bird). The ages are off a bit, but census records are notorious for errors such as these. I’m still looking for James in 1850 who stated that he was born in Missouri in 1835. I found James and Sarah’s marriage record in Missouri listed as 11 Dec 1860. I also found the following transcripts taken from various resources: I. Lawrence County, Mo., Circuit Court Documents, 1858-1869 James Bird is listed as a juror in a murder hearing for State of Mo. Vs. John Carden, 30 Sep 1857 II. Lawrence County, Mo., Circuit Court Documents ,Oct 1845-May 1865 State vs. Bird James Bird, defendant, March 1860 *HIGHLIGHTS FROM CIRCUIT COURT BOOKS A & B Book B 13th Circuit District. III. JULY 1858 Diary of a James Dobbins, Vineyard, Lawrence County, MO: (http://www.rootsweb.com/~molawre2/bio/dob-1850-8.html) 10. We worked out sugar cane. I worked on a wagon wheel for Bird. I finished his wheel, put on tire and sent him off.
JUNE 1889 “The sheriff is selling Bird's goods.” IV. There are 9 Civil War Records listing just “James Bird” as a Confederate Civil War Soldier and numerous others with middle initials. There are 3 listed as POWs and numerous others with middle initials. A Sarah Bird filed for Pension in Missouri for a James Bird who is listed as having died 05 Jun 1890. I don’t know if this is our guy or not.
Further research into the sisters of James and of course into his sons finds them all moving to Indian Territory about 1880. This would explain why none of them are in the 1880 census. Phebe is noted by another member to be in Pittsburgh County, OK, in 1880. Elizabeth is still in Lawrence County, however she is married to a Meligan and has a “Sarah A. B. Bird” living with her. I couldn’t find this Sarah’s parents and have assumed she is James and Sarah’s daughter, Thomas’s sister. There is a problem with Mary, because there is one whom married a David Grey and stayed in the area...and then ours, which we have no information on. I do not think they are the same person. The 1890 U.S. census burned to the ground . That leaves us with 1900 and unfortunately, James and Sarah are such common names that once again, it is tough to tell. I did find a James Bird who is the right age in 1880 in District 104, Lodi, San Joaquin County, California, as a gold miner. He is a boarder living next door to a John H. McKinsey who is the same age as Sarah’s brother John. If this is a coincidence it is definitely an odd one! It is possible that the two came out West searching for gold in “them thar hills”! Later I find a James and Sarah in 1900 in the Peoria Nation of Oklahoma Indian Territory next door to a Busby family (Phebe’s husband’s name), and again, the ages are off a bit. It could be coincidence as well...but somehow I doubt it.
Back to Thomas: I can not find Thomas or Kate in the 1900 census and they were married somewhere around 1889 in Indian Territory. Their first son, William Curtiss was born in 1892 in Star, Oklahoma (a place on the outside of an Indian post that is no longer called Star). His brother Benjamin settled in Choctaw Territory in Oklahoma by 1900, and his eldest son was born in 1892 in Star, Oklahoma as well...and he named him William Arthur. I think the name William must have some sort of meaning that I haven’t discovered yet, as in quite possibly their grandfather’s name or maybe James’s first name. On every record James, Ben and Thomas all list themselves as white. Where does the Cherokee notion come from and why does more than one side of the family link the Cherokees to us? Note that Coyote Pons put that Thomas had been the Cherokee Indian, not Kate (or Alice as was her real name). I don’t know if this is Coyote’s real name or if she discovered enough to make her take on an alias. Elizabeth, James’s sister, states that her parents were born in South Carolina and Tennessee in the 1900 Census. These states were part of the Trail of Tears saga, so it only compounds the Cherokee notion.
The Cherokee Nation had 7 Clans: the Wolf, the Panther, the Long Hair, the Wild Potato, the Deer, the Paint, and the Bird Clan. Wikipedia describes the Bird Clan as: “Ah-ni-tsi-sk-wa or Red Tailed Hawk Clan - Those belonging to this Clan (also called the bird clan) were the keepers of the birds, sacred feathers and bird medicines. They were messengers and were very skilled in using blowguns and snares for bird hunting. Their color is Purple, and their wood is Maple.” It is well known that the Cherokee lived among the Carolinas and Tennessee and were pushed out creating the Trail of Tears. The notion that Elizabeth and James’s father was born in South Carolina fits with this American Indian history. That they would continue to settle on Choctaw, or “mountain people” in Cherokee, land— makes sense. And why would James get into trouble for running horses on a public road if he were white? It isn’t as if they had paved roads all set up perfectly. Horses were what they used to get around, so this didn’t make much sense to me.
*** McKinsey and Mahan As for Sarah Ann McKensie, her father and mother list themselves as being born in Kentucky and Virginia, respectively. The name spelling is different even on the same page of a single court document. Census records spell it McKinsey or McKensey, but land documents spell it McKenzie. Alexander R. McKinsey, Sarah’s father is listed in his wife’s family’s wills as her spouse with it spelled as McKenzie as well. I have to assume that ignorance on the part of the documenter is to blame, because all of them say that they can read and write. The name is a derivative taken from Clan Coinneach, meaning son of “Kenneth”. For a better explanation of the Clan MacKenzie, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_MacKenzie
When I found John McKinsey living next to James bird in Lodi, CA, in 1880, I noted that this John said his father was born in Scotland. I have no way of knowing for sure whether or not this John and James are our guys or not. It is peculiar though. Later in 1900 when I found James’s son, Benjamin, living in Choctaw territory in Oklahoma, I noticed that most of the names on the page began with Mc...denoting the Scottish/Irish connection once again. Alexander stated that he’d been born in Kentucky, and he very well may have been...perhaps his father was the immigrant. There are many McKinsey’s in Kentucky at the time of his birth. He may have been brought over as an infant as well, and so he believed himself to be a full born American.
I recently discovered Sarah’s mother, Martha Jane Mahan. This name is misspelled often and changed frequently. The most frequent reference for Mahan is Mc or MacMahan, followed by Mahon. A quick search of this name finds that it is Irish from Clare County, and a peculiarity of it is that it is also a name found in Iran (Mahan).
|