My Name is Walter Kirkwood. I live in Argo, Alabama which is NorthEast of Birmingham. I grew up in Pleasant Grove, AL. I attended the University of Alabama graduating with a BS degree in 1989. I currently work for McLeod Software which is one of the leading suppliers of technology to the trucking industry in the United States. I married a girl by the name of Shawnette Jordan from West Virginia in 1994 and we have three kids. In my spare time I enjoy working in the yard during the summer and riding motorcycles. I have owned many motorcycles over the years and try to always keep two. Currently I have a 2004 Yamaha VStar 1100 and a 1996 BMW RT1100. You can see extensive writeups on my motorcycle adventures on my blog
The Kirkwood Surname is common in Scotland. My family was living in the area of Lanarkshire in or near the town of StoneHouse. My direct descendent was born Walter Kirkwood. His father died before or shortly after his birth and his mother remarried a man named Brown. There appeared to be some level of distress because some census records picked up my great grandfather twice, because he was obviously being shuffled around to different houses. Probably due to the negative effects of the potato famine Mr Brown gained passage to the United States in 1888 and arrived at the Port of Philadelpia. At the time that they arrived it had been discovered that the area in Central Alabama which is now called Birmingham had all the ingredients locally to make steel. Alabama wasn't the most hospitible place to live at the time so there were jobs to be had and my family came and have remained in this area since. My great grandfather arrived in this country using the name Walter Brown because of his stepfather but later legally changed back to Kirkwood. Walter married another Scottish immigrant and had a son named Jim Kirkwood. Jim married a woman named Edna who was known to me only as "mee maw". Jim and Edna had a son they named Walter Kirkwood, who is to this day known to me as "Dad". I'm going to add much more family line information to this page in the near future.