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Kirkwood Genealogy
Robert Kirkwood and his Descendants Last updated Feb 2009
Robert Kirkwood (1782 -
Some Known Facts
Robert Kirkwood was born in 1782 in (or near) Belfast, Ireland. His parents were Robert Kirkwood and Margaret Lewis. They were married on 29 October, 1776 in Carnmoney, Country Antrim, Ireland.
In 1808 Robert married Sarah Simpson in Belfast. Between 1810 and 1826 they had seven children. In 1832 they all arrived in Australia. They now (in 2008) have about 650 direct descendants in eight generations, and about 300 of those descendants have spouses. Of this 950 people, over 600 are still living.
Was he a Convict?
The Missing Years
Nothing is known of the family from 1832 until the 1840s. The version of events that was believed to be correct until recently was that the family arrived in Sydney as free settlers on the ship “Mountaineer” on 7 September, 1832, lived in Muswellbrook (Hunter Valley) for several years, and then moved to the Armidale district.
An alternate version has now been discovered. This is that Robert arrived in Sydney as a convict on the ship “Isabella” in 1832. The provider of this information was one of the key contributors to the Genealogy that was produced in 1967. That document makes no mention of the ‘convict’ version.
A study of early settlement in New South Wales reveals that it was fairly common
practice for the wife of a ‘well-
Sources of Information
The Robert Cooper Genealogy
The Robert Cooper Genealogy was substantially updated in 1986 by Robert Stewart Cameron, and published in book form (Robert Cooper of Juniper Hall) ISBN 1 86252 128 X. A supplement of corrections and additions was published in 1988. These publications contained a substantial amount of new or expanded material that was relevant to the Robert Kirkwood Genealogy.
The kirkwood_1782 Database
Information from the original Robert Kirkwood Genealogy has been updated from the Cooper publications and other sources. This has been posted as kirkwood_1782 in the worldconnect domain of the rootsweb.com website.
The names and details (other than surname) of all living persons are suppressed on this site. This exposure has led to a number of contacts from family members and others with updated information. Where this information is consistent with known facts it is added to the database.