My Name is Walter Kirkwood. I live in Argo, Alabama which is NorthEast of Birmingham.
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.

Conditions in scotland were deteriorating due to overcrowding and pollution and My great grandfather became part of the second Scotish Wave of immigrants to America. Mr Brown and family arrived at the Port of Philadelpia in 1888. The majority of the second wave of scotts sought work in America's mines and factories.

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, it was sparsly populated and the steel companies needed labor and lots of it. Scotish immigrants were a perfect match and many came to Birmingham. The Kirkwood family remains in the area today.

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 settled in Edgewater, Alabama and married a woman named Edna who was known to me only as "mee maw".

Jim and Edna had two sons Walter, my father and Ox. (Ox is all I've ever known him as, if he has a real name I don't now what it is).
Ox moved to Orlando Florida around 1970 and remains there today. His Children James, Katie, and Mary all live in Central and Southern Georgia if I remember correctly.
Religeously I know nothing about my forfathers. My grandfather was not religious. My grandmother attended church but It may have just been the thing to do. The building was across the street and served as both a Baptist and Methodist church. My father and Unkle found religeon at a later time and not unsurprisingly one became a Methodist (my father) while the other (Ox) became a Baptist.
My father Walter became a structural engineer and married another Edgewater resident Doris Barber. The Barbers were of English and German decent. Their family had been in this country for multiple generations and had immigrated from Tennessee and locations further north. The Barbers were known for being kindly but stubborn people.
My father upon getting married moved to a newer community about five miles away from Edgewater called Pleasant Grove. There they had had three children, Carylyn, Lisa, and myself. All graduated from Pleasant Grove High School. Carolyn and myself went on to graduate from the University of Alabama while Lisa graduated from the University of Montevallo.
I married Shawnette Jordan originally from West Virginia. The Jordan family was mostly Native American with some German thrown in. They were notible for a distinct lack of temper control, but were a strong, tanacious bunch who had a knack for surviving anything thrown their way.
Shawnette and I have three children twins Keila and Kayla, and Jade. We moved about 30 miles to the East of Pleasant Grove to the other side of the Metro area. Compared to the place my family had been living the area was being newly developed, had newer schools, better shopping and is considered a safer area. Kayla has a newborn child of her own named Jamie Kirkwood.
The town of Argo I would describe as your typical "piss ant" town. With a population of about 4 thousand they have a somewhat stormy relationship with the neighboring town of Springville, AL. Springville has roughly the same population but vastly more commerical success and the local high school serving both is there and bears its name.

Argo was once considered a poor area filled with "trailer trash" but is today a bedroom community for the Birmingham metro area and has a median income of roughly the same as Springville. The stigma of Argo being poor compared to Springville still exists but is kept alive mostly by older, long time residents. The newer people, for which their are many consider the area to be one and the same with a name change in the middle. Both towns are adjacent to Trussville, Alabama which is a larger city with all the shopping and convienence of modern life.
I was raised a Methodist but began to branch out after college. I eventually settled on a non denominational community church in Springville named The Church Bradford Road. The name is due to its location on "Bradford Road". The Pastor was raised and educated Baptist but parishoners are a collection of most every prodistant religeon along with many who never attended a church before. Though I do not still attend a Methodist church and recognize the pitfalls that have plagued their organization they still have a soft place in my heart, they still provided the firm foundation of faith that has kept me from wandering too far from God, and I sincerly hope that in his new century they will find their way back to the sort of grass roots that was their beginnings.