Sidney Kale
Although no pictures of Sidney Kale exist, he was an interesting individual. Sidney was born 14 Oct 1828 in Catawba County, NC - the son of Absalom Kale, of whom is very little known. He married Martha Ann Null in 1863. Sidney entered the Civil War in 1862 as a Private under the 49th NC Infantry, Company I. He was captured as a POW in 1865 in VA, and later returned home. He was spoken fondly of in several local newspaper articles recounting the war, and another in which his farm was damaged by a tornado. He married late in life to Delilah Jane Gant in 1889, and passed in early 1900. He left behind eight children with Martha.
Welcome!
Several years ago I became interested in the history of my family and set out to map the Kale family tree. Little did I realize the massive amount of information that I would actually be able to gather. The accumulation of what you see on this website is the result of hundreds of hours of research, and a lifetimes supply of coffee.
When I began I made several assumptions and limitations for myself. The original tree follows the male line. This is both because it accurately traces the name of Kale, but also out of necessity. Census records of the early to mid 1800's still only contained the head of households name, making the female line exponentially more difficult to follow. I tried to record parental names of the females when possible for future tree expansion. This also helped to limit the amount of data I gathered. Some members of the family contained dozens of pages of documentation on their lives. Even though much of this is incredibly interesting, I tried to limit myself to direct male heirs so I could finish in a reasonable amount of time. The great thing about moving this information to a website means that in the future we can expand this tree outwards in many directions.
The Kale family tree stops in the early to mid 1600's - in and around Rengsdorf, Germany. I never imagined I would be able to achieve such an early date. Our line immigrated to America in 1744, eventually settling in what is now Catawba County, NC around the late 1750's. Although many have left, we have a combined history of over 260 years in North Carolina. There are records of those fighting in the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, and many others. There are hundreds of other trees that have been compiled by those descending from the same line that exist. I referenced quite a few that helped in my research, and many others that contained a good number errors. I tried to take as scientific of an approach that I could, gathering proof where possible and marking inconsistencies where needed. This has produced what I hope to be one of the most accurate histories available for the Kale Family.
For those unsure where to begin, most of us begin the tree at Harold Walker Kale of 1932 - though the tree does branch lower. His record can be found here. Please feel free to contact me with any information missing, corrected, or otherwise.
Rengsdorf, Germany
The oldest known ancestor of the Kale family has been traced to Rengsdorf, Germany. Rengsdorf is a municipality in the district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Kale appears to have been originally spelled as "Kell" according to German records.