Introduction

In this blog I intend to write a bit about my findings on my ancestors, William Clark and Elizabeth Woodward, and their families in England. There is an entire book written about their homesteading adventures in Kansas and their descendants. This blog will focus on the English side of their history and the progress I make in uncovering it.

I will start by telling briefly the story of William Clark. He was born William Clarke in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, England, in September 1847, the youngest of seven children born to John Clarke and Temperance Turland. He sailed to New York from Liverpool on the Oceanic, arriving on July 3, 1871. William was the only member of his family to emigrate from England. He removed the "e" from his last name upon arriving in America. He married Elizabeth Woodward, also an immigrant from England, in Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas, on February 14, 1873. After living in Lawrence for a few years and bearing a couple of children, they packed up their covered wagon and moved to nearby Osage County, becoming some of the first settlers of the town of Overbrook in that county.