Chasing Birds

While I have been chatting to my maternal grandfather's cousins about that side of the tree, my dad has been chasing birds. Not the feathered variety, but those of his maternal ancestry.

See our line in Australia stems from Robert Bird born c.1819 most likely in Norfolk to - if his death certificate is correct - Richard Bird and his wife Susan nee Frost. In 1837 he was caught stealing a horse with Robert Greenwood and transported out here on the Bengal Merchant in 1838.

We have a reasonably clear picture of his descendants, I don't think it is completely exhaustive but for the most part we know the lines of his 10 kids for at least a generation or two. However, speaking to Nana (who at 101 is still sharp as a tack) and her remaining sisters there are all these cousins all these other Birds who they remember fondly from their childhoods that we just cannot place as descended from Robert.

So there are a couple of possibilities.

1. They aren't actually related by blood just share the surname
2. They are descended from a brother or uncle of Robert.

It's the latter that Dad has been  trying to confirm. He's been working through English census records and tracing various Bird lines. He has some very extensive trees plotted out and was making some sense of things. That is he was until last time we chatted about it when he spoke the words that all family historians fear:

I think I've been tracing the wrong tree

I knew having a doctor in our ancestry was too good to be true.