Robert Kirk was born in 1788 in Antrim County, Northern Ireland to a Scotch father and an Irish mother who had connections with the Presbyterian Church. Robert owned and farmed Greenhill Farm, Glenwherry, Antrim County, Northern Ireland. He married Sarah Reid, and they had ten children: Isabelle "Bell", Eliza, Sarah "Sallie", James, Jennie, Ellen, Andrew, Ann, William and John.

James and Andrew emigrated to the United States in 1851 and 1858, respectively, and Robert and Sarah soon decided to follow them. Three of their daughters did not accompany them. Bell stayed behind with her husband, and she later died in Northern Ireland leaving eight children. Jennie emigrated to Australia with her husband John "Billy" Rae and their son John Rae, but later emigrated from there to Tuscola County, Michigan. Their daughter Sarah remained in Northern Ireland after her marriage to Robert McCluney in 1862, but the following year they joined her parents who by then had settled in Fairgrove Township, Tuscola County, Michigan.

Robert and Sarah and their children Eliza, Ellen, Ann, William, and John sailed on the steamship "Jura" and arrived in Quebec, Canada in 1862. From there they traveled to Huron County, Ontario, Canada, and then on to Fairgrove Township, Tuscola County, Michigan later in the same year. Robert purchased eighty acres of timber land in Fairgrove Township that he cleared for farming. The land that is now Brookside Cemetery originally belonged to the Kirk family.

Sarah died in August 1865, and Robert passed away in 1871. Robert, Sarah, and all of their children and spouses with the exception of Isabelle and James are buried in Brookside Cemetery in Fairgrove, Michigan. Isabelle is buried in Northern Ireland, and James and his wife Nancy Miller are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Vassar, Michigan.