In the book's own words, not ours, with obvious scanning errors fixed. Families often supplied these stories to the publisher, so check key dates.
Born 1853
From Biographical records of Linn County, Iowa .. (1901)
RALPH KIRKPATRICK.
This well-known mid reiirescnlative tarnier of l-'franklin township, while home is on section 2", was born in West Salem,
Wayne county, Ohio, on the 21st of April, 1853, a son of James and Sarah (Henderson) Kirkpatrick. and was only five days old when his mother died. A sketch of his father appears on another page of this volume. He was only a year and a half old when his father returned to his old home in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, and at the age of five he came to Linn county, Iowa, with an uncle, John Ross, his Ijoyhood and youth Ijeing passed on the old homestead in Franklin township, and he is indebted to its district schools for his educational privileges. After leaving school at the age of twenty years he worked on the home farm until 1873, when he rented sixty acres of land and commenced farming on his own account.
[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]
As printed in Biographical records of Linn County, Iowa .. (1901). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
The printed record stops around 1901. We trace your line from there down to you, with every source cited.