Patrilineal Longevity: Defying Life Expectancy Rates

This past summer, I traveled to Licking County, Ohio and visited the cemetery grounds where my fifth great-grandfather, Thomas Kirk, was buried.

Walking among the crumbling markers, I found a weathered footstone inscribed with the initials "V. K." It was the last physical remnant of my fourth great-grandfather Vachel Kirk's burial.

Vachel Kirk's footstone

Thomas was accidentally killed when he was about 68 years old, and his son Vachel died at the age of 27. Both deaths made me curious about my patrilineal longevity. How old did my paternal line ancestors live to be, and were there reoccurring causes of death?

Vachel was the eldest of Thomas' 13 children and one of nine sons. When Vachel passed at 27, he had three children who survived him, including two sons.

My third great-grandfather, James Kirk, lived to be 87 years old. He passed away in Iowa's Polk County Asylum from acute intestinal infarction.

In 1917, his name appeared on the Asylum's rolls of the insane; first appearing in April when he was committed to the facility. I suspect, in his old age, his mental faculties must have faded and the family had to relinquish care to medical professionals. See Grandpa Reappeared In The Insane Asylum.

James had eight children, including five sons. Among them was my second great-grandfather William Franklin Kirk.

William settled in Colorado and worked at a water reservoir. In 1919, at the age of 67 (nearly the same age as Thomas Kirk when he was accidentally killed) he was found face down in the reservoir. His death certificate listed accidental drowning as the official cause of death. See Night Watchman Found Drowned.

William was father to 12 children, including seven sons. My great-grandfather Samuel James Kirk was among the middle children.

Samuel enlisted in the military during World War I, and spent his final months living in a Colorado Veterans Administration hospital. He died in 1970 at the age of 78 due to chronic brain syndrome.

Samuel's only child - my grandfather - passed away in 1990 at the age of 58 following a heart attack.

Scattered Results Yet Defying Life Expectancy Rates
Tallying their ages: 58, 78, 67, 87, 27, and 68, results in an average life expectancy of 64 years.

When laid out in this fashion, it's interesting to see that the scattered ages - skewed by accidents and an early death - aren't the result of a single reoccurring cause of death.

I searched for the corresponding life expectancy for men born in each of their generations. Legacy approximated life expectancy as follows:

• 1750-1800: 36 years of age
• 1800-1850: 37 years of age
• 1850-1900: 38 years of age
• 1900-1950: 48 years of age

These average ages skewed low - even for these time periods - because of the inclusion of the higher childhood mortality rates that existed pre-20th century.

I've seen life expectancy charts where the numbers increased for men who made it to the age of ten. If you could survive the afflictions of childhood, you were likely to live a moderately long life even by today's standards.

While none of them were centenarians, my paternal ancestors - excepting Vachel - all beat the life expectancy rates for men born in their generation. Hey, celebrate every victory!

How did your ancestors fare?

The Back End of Nowhere: My Irish Ancestral Homecoming

Family lore and Y-DNA testing recently chiseled a crack in my patrilineal brick wall, casting light - a piercing emerald green blaze - on the origins of my paternal ancestry.

I learned that my paternal ancestors - the Kirks - were originally Quirkes from County Tipperary in southern Ireland.

The Quirke surname was Anglicized to the phonetically similar Kirk when my branch of the family migrated to Scotland before journeying onward to America. Learn more about this saga in Surname Evolution: A Y-DNA Journey From Ohio to Ireland.

An Emerald Isle Homecoming
After reassembling this forgotten history, I was drawn to the homeland. I had to see the landscapes and walk where generations of my paternal ancestors lived and died.

I flew to Ireland at the end of August for an Emerald Isle homecoming.

Thanks to the efforts of a distant US-based Quirk cousin, I was connected with an Ireland-based Quirke cousin. We corresponded over email and agreed to meet in the town of Cashel in the shadow of the famed Rock of Cashel - the seat of power for the kings of Munster.

The Rock of Cashel

My Irish Quirke cousin picked me up at my hotel. I hopped into the front passenger seat and we set out on a driving tour of the county - passing through the townships that had been home to centuries of our paternal ancestors.

As we neared his village, he turned onto a narrow road that could barely accommodate two cars. Towering hedges lined both sides of the road. "Welcome to the back end of nowhere," he quipped in his wonderfully charming Irish brogue.

We drove past his home and approached an open patch of farmland paved with the stubs of recently harvested barley.

Unexpectedly, we pulled forward. The car bounced and bumped as we worked our way across the width of the field. Startled jackrabbits bounded into running sprints and flocks of birds spiraled into upward flight.

The car slowed as it pulled alongside an old stone wall that guarded the perimeter of the ruins of a small church and its graveyard. We climbed out of the vehicle and walked through a metal gate that cringed and cried its way open.

Trudging across grassy clover, we came to a row of tall headstones. They belonged to generations of the Quirke family, dating to the 1800s. As I began to photograph the markers, a light rain gained momentum. We huddled under a large evergreen for protection. As quick as it had started, the shower subsided.

It's a humbling experience to walk land once home to my ancestors, surrounded by stones commemorating the lives of relatives, and meeting my Irish cousin.

Although our shared paternal ancestor is unknown and likely to remain so, I imagine he was smiling over his two progeny reconnecting despite an ocean and centuries of history between them.

Later in my trip, as I sailed across the Irish Sea to Scotland - retracing the voyage of my paternal forebearers - I couldn't help but marvel at the power of 21st century genealogy. I was reminded of Robert Graves' quote:

"Few are wholly dead: Blow on a dead man's embers and a live flame will start."

No Brick Walls in Google's Library

I've been away from the blog and genealogy this past month while traveling in India for work. It was, in a word, incredible. It's a country of extremes: beauty, color, poverty, heat, generosity.

Taj Mahal (photo by author)

I'm now home in the U.S. and ready to tackle my family history research. Yesterday, I made up for lost time and very nearly pulled an all-nighter as I dived back in with a vengeance. Like India, my genealogy motto is one of extremes: research hard or don't!

Researching Offline

I spent the afternoon at the Daughters of the American Revolution library trawling through dusty old volumes detailing Licking County, Ohio marriages, tax lists, probates, and land records. I wanted to see if I could learn more about my Kirk ancestors. Surely one of the many bound volumes held the clue I desperately needed to advance my research. 

It occurred to me, as I quietly turned page after page in each hulking antique tome praying for the author to name drop my ancestor, that it would take me months of sitting quietly in the reading room to finish just one of the books. 

They're reference materials. They can't be checked out. You can't read them carefully in the comfort of your home. If the book doesn't include a name index (as many of these older volumes don't), you just have to sit and read (and pray you don't overlook the name you're after). What I wouldn't give for these books to be online and keyword searchable.

Library of Tomorrow is Today

Back at home, reflecting on my lack of success at DAR's library, it occurred to me that maybe some of these older volumes had been digitized and were keyword searchable. Could I pull up the book and search (CTRL + F) for my family's surname? I Google searched a volume title and was directed to Google's Book database. 

Now, I have to admit that I knew this database existed. I've sat in conference sessions where genealogy tech guru Lisa Louise Cooke touted the value of Google technology, including Google Books. Regrettably, I always assumed that my ancestors didn't have sufficient notoriety to merit publication in a book. I never searched. Huge mistake! 

I dropped in the county name and Google turned up some of the enormous Licking County histories I was paging through at DAR. In a matter of seconds I was able to word search the volume and confirm my surname was not mentioned. Boom! Done! On to the next volume. Genealogy is time intensive. We don't have time to waste on resources that don't advance our family trees. We need to take advantage of tools like Google Books that make our research more effective and efficient.

Google Books Offers a Rapunzel-esque Climb Over a Brick Wall

I excitedly began searching a handful of surnames. Followers of the blog know I've been trying to learn more about Burr Zelah Dornon and his family. A search of his surname turned up a tantalizing clue. 

My 4th great-grandparents were highlighted in what appeared to be a list of descendants. Before this list appeared on my screen, Sophronia (Rogers) Dornon was a brick wall. I had no idea who her parents were (although family lore said her mother's maiden name was Gould).

Unfortunately, I was only able to see this small snippet of text. The book, as is the case with some volumes, was not available to be read online in its entirety through Google Books.

Unwilling to slow for this roadblock, I plugged the publication's title into a standard Google search and found a link to FamilySearch's library. Of course, the Mecca of genealogy had a copy in their holdings.

In a sign that the stars truly were aligned last night, the volume was available to access and read in its entirety through FamilySearch. In the comfort of my own home!

The text did in fact provide Sophronia's purported parents' names: Francis and Abigail (Gould) Rogers. It even provided both of their parents' names. In one evening, thanks to Google Books, I uncovered possible new sets of 5th and 6th great-grandparents. You try and go to sleep after that kind of success!

To help corroborate the information, I turned to Ohio probate records on FamilySearch and found Francis Rogers' 1843 will in Hardin County. In it, he doles out his assets to his family, including daughter Sophronia.

Sophronia inherits $75 from her father in his September 1843 will

A search for Abigail revealed that she not only survived her husband by nearly four decades, but she also survived daughter Sophronia. Find A Grave has a burial for Abigail in Iowa where she evidently lived with one of her sons.

Collectively, there remains a lot of work to document and substantiate these new leads, but in one fell swoop Google Books gave me a leg up that enabled me to peak beyond the brick wall. Perhaps this one will come tumbling down.