Birch Family History
BIRCH FAMILY
The name of our family originated in England and has been spelled a number of ways down through the years, namely: Birk, Byrck, Byrch, Birch, Burtch, and finally, Burch. The first record of the name, Matthew Birch of Hatheersage, England, was recorded during the reign of King John of England, A.D. 1199-1216.
The first record of a Burch coming to America was in January 2, 1634, when 167 men and women were bought to Virginia as colonists on the merchant ship "Bonaventure." The second was "William Prior who was granted 600 acres of land by the Charles River Co. for sailing to the New World 12 colonists" one of which was John Burch. This was in the year 1637. Both of these groups sailed from the port of London. Later records show that more Burches came to Virginia and the Carolinas by way of Barbados, The West Indies, and Bermuda. Few records were available then but became available shortly before the American Revolution when several Burch families were living in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina along the eastern edge of the Smokey Mountains. Henry Burch is believed to have been born in Henry County, North Carolina, where he too reared a family before moving to new land in western South Carolina. With the opening of the Creek Indian lands of Alabama to settlement in 1832, members of the family settled in Benton (now Calhoun) County, Alabama, between 1832 and 1834.
During the Civil War and following that war, 17 families of Burches migrated to Cooke County, Texas in 1868-1869 to land granted to some for wartime services. The journey was made by oxen and mules drawn wagons over trails they had to blaze which took a year to complete.
Today, there are members of the family widely scattered over the United States. One of which is my grandmother, Maude Mae (BURCH) Anderson, who was born October 23, 1883, Mountainside, Cooke County, Texas. She married George Anderson, December 6, 1906, and remained bethrothed to him until his death on September 15, 1934. From this union, my mother, Ruth Isabel (ANDERSON) Smith was born on March 17, 1912, at Sunset, Montague County, Texas. She died on September 3, 1982, at Lubbock, Texas.
With the death of her brother and sisters, Johnny Clifford Anderson, Jessie Lucille (ANDERSON) Beardsley, Ethel Lu Ella (ANDERSON) Hope, Thelma (ANDERSON) Halcomb, Elva Leota (ANDERSON) Elliott, and Billie Lois (ANDERSON) Johnson, the torch is passed to continue the family with my generation. To date, November 26, 2009 (THANKSGIVING DAY), all brothers, save Russell Lee, and sisters are alive and well.
JERRY D. SMITH
