Letter to my late mother. 2037 Holmes Avenue Springfield, Illinois February 20, 1964 Dear Mrs. Hurlbutt: I always read the Hobby Column in "Together", especially the genealogy group, for that is my hobby. I have just put into the hands of a professional typist the manuscript of a family history I have been working on for years, for the final typing. My great-grandmother Springer was before her first marriage in St. Clair County, Illinois, Elizabeth Byrd, or Bird, born May 1, 1802 in Tennessee. Seven or eight years ago I found the probate record of a John Byrd at Belleville, the county seat of St. Clair County, and the name was spelled Byrd sometimes and sometimes Bird, and I know that before the Revolution spelling did not mean much even in literate families. We were always told that we belonged to the Byrds of Henrico County, Virginia; and our old History of Madison County, Illinois, published in 1882, said she was a daughter of John Byrd, of Alabama. Following up on that, I wrote a letter to the Historical Society of Alabama, about fifteen yeas ago, and asked about him; and got back a rather sarcastic letter in reply, saying some of the Virginia Byrds did come to Alabama, but much later, about 1840; and there were practically no white people in Alabama as early as 1802. We were living in Springfield at that time, and I had met the director of the Archives Building, Ernest East. He got the original mortality census for 1849, when she died in the cholera epidemic, and brought it to me, and the regular census for the same year, 1850, which gave the state of their nativity, and it said plainly she was born in Tennessee, not Alabama, so if her father went to Alabama, it was after she was born. The census for 1850 was the first one that gave the native state, anywhere in the United States. So I wrote to Nashville. >From the Archives of Tennessee I found four grants of land in 1788, 1790 and 1792, to John Byrd (1788), John Bird (1790) and John Byrd (1792) all in Green County, and obviously the same man, but he died in Greene County, and when I sent for his probate record, there was an Elizabeth, all right, but not married to either George Biggs or John Springer. So I suspect that that John Byrd (Bird) may have been my Elizabeth's grand-father, for many of the early settlers of St. Clair and Madison Counties came from Tennessee and Kentucky. The County Seat of Madison County, formed in 1812, is Edwardsville; Madison was once a part of St. Clair County. Does any of this ring a bell with you? If so, I may be able to give you some material on your Bird line, or put you in touch with someone who can. I know that my Elizabeth had sisters, Nancy, born in 1806, and Mary, born in 1808, and a brother, William, who had died by 1850; and there may have been a brother John, age unknown, who married as his second wife, Mrs. Mary Kinney, and had two daughters, Louisa and Sarah, and a son Cornelius Byrd, as named in his father's will, and Neil, as named in his mother's. A Methodist sister, /s/ (Miss) Jessie E. Springer, 2037 Holmes Avenue Springfield, Illinois 62074