Brief Life History of John
When John Kerr was born on 27 September 1832, in Ireland, his father, John Kerr, was 40 and his mother, Hannah Kerr, was 27. He lived in Randolph, Bremen Precinct, Randolph, Illinois, United States in 1850. He died on 12 October 1904, at the age of 72, and was buried in Swanwick, Perry, Illinois, United States.
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Family Time Line
Sources (1)
- John Kerr, "United States Census, 1850"
Parents and Siblings
World Events (8)
1836 · Remember the Alamo
Being a monumental event in the Texas Revolution, The Battle of the Alamo was a thirteen-day battle at the Alamo Mission near San Antonio. In the early morning of the final battle, the Mexican Army advanced on the Alamo. Quickly being overrun, the Texian Soldiers quickly withdrew inside the building. The battle has often been overshadowed by events from the Mexican–American War, But the Alamo gradually became known as a national battle site and later named an official Texas State Shrine.
1839
The Night of the BIG WIND. In Killarney and its neighborhood there was a terrible hurricane. The town sustained much damage and many houses were shattered.
1856 · The Largest Map Company in the World
William Rand opened a small printing shop in Chicago. Doing most of the work himself for the first two years he decided to hire some help. Rand Hired Andrew McNally, an Irish Immigrant, to work in his shop. After doing business with the Chicago Tribune, Rand and McNally were hired to run the Tribune's entire printing operation. Years later, Rand and McNally established Rand McNally & Co after purchasing the Tribune's printing business. They focused mainly on printing tickets, complete railroad guides and timetables for the booming railroad industry around the city. What made the company successful was the detailed maps of roadways, along with directions to certain places. Rand McNally was the first major map publisher to embrace a system of numbered highways and erected many of the roadside highway signs that have been adopted by state and federal highway authorities. The company is still making and updating the world maps that are looked at every day.
Name Meaning
English and Scottish: topographic name for someone who lived by a marsh or swampy woodland, Middle English kerr ‘brushwood, wet ground’ (Old Norse kjarr). A legend grew up that the Kerrs were left-handed, on theory that the name is derived from Gaelic cearr ‘wrong-handed, left-handed’.
Irish: variant of Carr .
Americanized form of German Kehr or of some other similar (like-sounding) surname.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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