Lydia Kirk

Hill of Tarvit in Cupar, Fife, Scotland

Lydia Kirk, my wife's great grandmother, and wife to John Henry McAllister was born Dec 13th, 1869 in Springfield, county Fife, Scotland.  The family made their home in Cupar a few miles east of Springfield.  Fife is on the eastern side of Scotland and is home to St Andrews, the "birthplace of golf".  Cupar is a small town, having a population of about 7000 in the 1890's.  The name Cupar means "Common Land", and the town has been an historic center of trade in Fife.  At the time Lydia was born, the 1800's economy in Fife was dominated by the textile industry.  Many fortunes were made in Fife.   Frederick Sharp was one such man.  He purchased Wemyss Hall, an several hundred year old structure and had it renovated and expanded in 1904.  It was renamed the "Hill of Tarvit" Mansion (above).

Lydia and her family would have known the old Wemyss Hall since her family left Scotland about 1880 for America.  She reports her year of immigration to be 1881.  The family mainly took up residences in Montana (Kalispell), California (Around Alameda), and Washington (Spokane).

At the age of 21 she married John Henry McAllister in Spokane Falls.  The date was Sept 17th, 1890.  She raised a family in Spokane, primarily residing on Altamount Street, until her husband John's death in 1934.  Four years later at 68, she and her eldest son Donald (47) visited Scotland.  Around that time she moved to Alameda, California where Donald resided.  She died on Nov 3, 1953 in Alameda.

Her children were (Year Born)(Residence): Donald (1891)(Alameda), Lester (1893)(Spokane), Frank (1894)(California), Dora (1896)(Bellingham, WA), Alice (1898)(), Roger (1900)(Alameda), Jeannie (1903)(Spokane), and John Jr. (1907)(Clark, Washington).

As an example of how this story gets put together, I've listed a portion of the evidence used to supported it:

• Maiden name of Kirk on her marriage certificate.
• County of origin Scotland on multiple documents.
• Parents names located on multiple census lists.
• Parents and pertinent siblings living together in 1861 and 1881 Scotland censuses (Cupar).
• Father and two brothers and sister living in Montana in the early 1900's
• Sister Helen's obituary (from Montana) names Lydia Mcallister of Alameda (early 1953) as her sister
• Father George is buried in the same cemetery in Montana as Lydia's brother Thomas and George (as well as several other Kirks)
• All the ages match from one document to another.

This adds up to 100% certainty in the validity of the core of this data.