Kennedy DNA Matches Keep Rolling In, But Still No Magic Bullet

Y-DNA matches continue to trickle in for our three male Kennedy testers but we still don't have the magic bullet that will crack the mystery of of where our David Kennedy came from, whether in Ireland or America.

Our line of Kennedys belong to Haplogroup DF21, a large haplogroup very common to Irish males. Even at 67 markers, we have numerous non-surname matches, so it is difficult at this point to focus in on any single match as a lead. At this point, we have no other high marker level matches with anyone named Kennedy.

We've had a couple of false alarms as other Kennedys (a surprisingly common surname) have reached out inquire whether we might be DNA matches to their male lines (so far we aren't), and our autosomal DNA testing has identified a potential lead among a group of Canadys from coastal NC, but that possible connection will need to be thoroughly researched before any conclusions can be drawn.

Although we have not yet done SNP testing on any of our male testers, I feel reasonably certain we will refine into the L1337 sublcade of DF21, and possibly even into one of the A93X subclades of L1337 (with X currently represented by 3, 4 and 5). So far, testers within this group trace their lineages back to western Ireland, which should come as no surprise to us.

Our next step may be an upgrade to define our terminal SNP and see if we do in fact fall into one of these predicted subclades. As more testers match us, and identify their families' points of origin in Ireland, we may be able to focus in on a single area that could provide clues to our own.

Pinpoints show known testers of subclade A935.

Ongoing DNA Testing of Kennedy Family Volunteers Reveals Millennia-old Irish Origins

As funding and opportunity present themselves, we are continuing to upgrade our Kennedy family volunteers' DNA tests in an effort to pin down the origins of our common ancestor, David Kennedy of Russell County, VA (b ? - d 1800).

Late last year, we ran an R1b-M343 Backbone test to begin narrowing down our line's haplogroup to see if our ancient origins might shed any light on our more recent ones.

The backbone test identifies a tester's haplogroup by analyzing the SNPs ("snips"), Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in our DNA. SNPs are  the unique mutations on the Y-chromosome that have happened over thousands of years. They are passed down from father to son, so the larger the percentage of the population who shares a mutation, the longer ago it happened. Conversely, the smaller the percentage of the population who who shares a mutation, the more recently it happened (and therefore the less time it's had to be passed down). By looking to see whether a group of testers has a specific mutation known to be older or newer, it is possible to group them more accurately within a historical or genealogical timeframe.

If you think of humanity as an inverted tree, it began to fork from a common trunk very far back in time. From those early forks came distinctly shaped smaller limbs, and from those limbs came still smaller unique branches and finally the twigs which are nearest the top of our human tree (or the bottom, in genealogical charting terms). Most western Europeans come from the very early R-M207 fork of the tree close to the trunk. R-M207 is estimated to have arisen during the Upper Paleolithic era sometime between 19,000-34,000 years ago. As time went by, mutations caused new branches to begin growing off of the main R-M207 fork, all the way up (or down) to the little twigs that have come into existence only a few thousand or even hundred years ago.

Our backbone test yielded a haplogroup designation for our Kennedy family of DF21. There is disagreement about precisely when the DF21 Haplogroup branched off the tree, although a recent archaeological discovery and subsequent testing indicates it probably originated close to 4,600-4,700 years ago.

At the present, there isn't a lot of information to share about our ancient DF21 ancestor. The overview on the  DF21 and Subclades Project on Family Tree DNA is heavy on genetic minutiae like individual marker values and specific mutations, and light on implications and conclusions about our origins or ethnicity. There are several websites dedicated to subclades (the smaller limbs and twigs that have grown from DF21), but I don't believe any would apply specifically to our line of Kennedys, since they focus on parallel branches and individual family groups.

One development of some interest is the aforementioned news in December from Dublin that a team of geneticists and archaeologists had recently completed sequencing the genomes of four ancient inhabitants of Ireland. One of those samples came from a skeleton called Rathlin Man 1 who shared our DF21 ancestor.

Rathlin Man 1 was discovered in a Bronze Age cist on Rathlin Island off the coast of County Antrim in present-day Northern Ireland. Rathlin Island is the northernmost point in Ireland and only 11 miles from Scotland's Mull of Kintyre. This man's bones were carbon-dated to 2025-1885 BC, and he carried a few unique mutations which would have taken 600-700 years to develop, so his discovery allows us to make an educated guess that our common DF21 ancestor likely lived 4,600-4,700 years ago.

While this is interesting, without significant additional contextual history for this man and his surrounding Bronze Age neighbors, it is hard for us to draw any useful cultural conclusions other than confirmation that our DF21 relatives can be found in northeastern Ireland as early as 2025 BC (which isn't to say they were confined to that area, or even confined to Ireland). An article in The Guardian provides fascinating details about what was learned from the genomic sequencing performed on the Rathlin men and a 5,000 year old farmer woman found near Belfast.

Although we have not yet attempted to narrow down our Kennedy lines's haplogroup any further, I strongly suspect that should we do so, we would get a downstream result of L1337. We share unique mutations in our STR (Short Tandem Repeat) values with other Y-67 testers who have been identified as L1336 and L1337. These two designations are smaller "family branches" off of the limb S5488, which grows straight off of DF21. The website PetersPioneers.com does a nice job of providing understandable information and diagrams about all of this if you'd like to learn more.

Based on our assumption that our Kennedys will be L1337's, I had a look at the current public results chart for the DF21 Haplogroup project to see where other L1336 and L1337 testers come from. If you look at the chart you will see the L1336/1337 testers about halfway down in Groups J1a, J1b J1c and J1d. I predict we will fall within J1c, but can't confirm that without testing. Bear in mind that we don't know when we shared a common ancestor with the other testers represented in Groups J1a-J1d, but it was probably much more recently than 4,700 years ago. Realistically, it may have been as recently as a few hundred to a thousand years ago. I wish I could be more precise, and as more testing is done, we may become so, but for now, it's an unknown.

Many testers do not provide information regarding their most distant known ancestor, but some do. Using what was available, I began mapping the known points of origin of genetically similar L1336 and L1337 testers on a Google Map. A number of the men who provided data can only trace their ancestors into Ireland as far back as the 18th or 19th centuries, so while the places they identify are typically reliable, there is plenty of opportunity for their ancestors to have spread out across Ireland from any ancient single point of origin over the intervening millennia. Ireland is small, and ancient people were surprisingly mobile.

My hope, is that as time goes by and we acquire more close genetic matches from our STR and SNP testing efforts, we will see a distinct cluster of matches emerging on the map. That may give us some sense of where we should be looking for our David Kennedy's roots in Ireland. One thing that I can say with a degree of certainty is that many of the names that share distinctive SNP values with our Kennedys are considered Irish in origin. I think it's safe to say that our Kennedys are likely of recent Irish origin (vs Scots, English or Scandinavian). And speaking as a genealogist, "recent" is a relative term (Ha-haha! I crack myself up -- a "relative" term? "Genealogy?")

Although we do have L1336/37's as far away as Wales on our map, the highest frequency of matches so far comes from County Clare, between Galway Bay and Limerick. This sample, however, is far too small to allow us to draw any conclusions. While this area is the historical seat of the O'Kennedy family, if we had been part of that family group, I would have expected at least a few Y-DNA matches with others of the Kennedy surname (of which we currently have none).

So that's the current state of things.

To summarize, SNP testing has confirmed that we fall into the DF21 Haplogroup, which probably originated 4,600-4,700 years ago and has recently been proven to have been in northeastern Ireland by at least 1885BC. Further testing would likely result in a designation of L1337 for our Kennedys, and based on a very small sample of known origins of other L1336 & L1337 testers, there appear to be several whose recent origins are in County Clare between Galway and Limerick.

To view the full-sized, interactive map and key, click here.

New DNA Testing and Research Answers Questions Surrounding Old Kennedy Family Traditions

This article was originally made available to descendants of David Kennedy and Elizabeth Conway Kennedy of Russell County, Virginia, in August of 2015. These important new discoveries change our understanding of many longstanding family traditions, so I am making our findings available on the public blog so that current and future researchers of this couple and their children will not waste time pursuing the now-disproven relationships which are recorded in older works of family history.

Back in January, a Brooks cousin made me aware of several Kennedy relations on Facebook, with whom I promptly connected since I was about to renew my efforts to push the Kennedy branch of my family tree a bit further back in time. My great-great-grandmother, Ibbie Kennedy Brooks, never knew her father, Wiley F. Kennedy, since he died several months prior to her birth. However, she must have had some degree of contact with his family, as fanciful tales of the Kennedys and of a great “inheritance” in Ireland were passed down from her to my grandmother, and from my grandmother to me. A bit of preliminary research in my teens led me to consider these stories highly unlikely, but until recently I had not had the time to pursue the facts of the matter. What little I knew included nothing to indicate any particular wealth or status of the family in Ireland (in fact, quite the opposite), but what did intrigue me was the great tragedy that had befallen the Kennedy family in the spring of 1800, when David Kennedy and his wife, Elizabeth Conway Kennedy, both met sudden and unexpected ends. The couple left two small orphans, one of  whom, John Kennedy, was to become the progenitor of the large family of Kennedys of Russell and Wise Counties in Virginia.

Newly-discovered Kennedy cousin Laura Smith kindly took the time to bring me up to speed on the current state of our Kennedy family’s research efforts. I had recently stumbled across an online copy of The Name and Family of Kennedy and Powers, Wade P. Kennedy’s booklet of family history. Wade P. Kennedy, born 1868, is a descendant of Pleasant H. Kennedy. When I questioned Laura about sources and details to support Wade P. Kennedy’s stories, she advised me to approach the anecdotes with a degree of caution, and explained that some of them were as yet unverified. She added that cousin Curtis Wade Kennedy (1938-ca 2010) had dedicated years of his life to attempting to locate documentation which would conclusively prove Wade P. Kennedy’s assertions that our line descended from the family of Captain Joseph Kennedy of Augusta County, Virginia -- but his most earnest and concerted efforts had failed to produce such proof. Ginger (Rose) Senter, also a newly discovered Kennedy cousin, concurred with Laura’s assessment of Wade P. Kennedy’s work as well as that of Curtis Wade Kennedy.

It occurred to me that this is the very sort of conundrum that lends itself to a DNA testing solution. A simple comparison of testers from the Augusta County Kennedy line(s) and our own line would instantly settle the question once and for all. Laura set about locating volunteers from our family to test, and I contacted James “Jim” E. Kennedy, the Kennedy Surname Project administrator for Family Tree DNA to see if the project currently included any testers who could prove a lineage back to the Augusta County Kennedys. As luck would have it, Jim himself descends from that group, so half the battle was already fought. He informed me that there is a strong cluster of matching testers who had documented paper trails back to that same family, so all that remained was to secure our testers for comparison.

Laura located two volunteers from the line of Pleasant H. Kennedy (1831-1916), and a third from the line of John Fletcher Kennedy (1846-1929). After a not-unusual delay of approximately 10-12 weeks we began to see results that clearly explained why Curtis Wade Kennedy had not been successful in finding documentation to support a connection to the Augusta County Kennedy family. Simply put, we are not related to them.

I realize that this is not the outcome that a number of family members (including myself) had hoped for, although it was probably a result not entirely unexpected by some. It would have been so much easier to learn that we did indeed descend from that distinguished and well-documented group, and consequently double our efforts to find the “proof” that must be there. It is both inconvenient and unsettling to realize that a decades-old and dearly-held family tradition must be discarded as we face the fact that we must look elsewhere for our David Kennedy’s origins. However, now that we know with certainty that we should stop pursuing research of the Augusta County group, we are freed up to begin pursuing the correct group -- if only we knew what group that was!

The second disappointment dealt to our testing effort was that while our three testers are a perfect match to each other (thereby establishing a strong genetic signature for our line for future comparison purposes), we did not match any of the large number of other Kennedys who are currently participating in the surname project. I have been surprised by just how common the Kennedy surname was in early America, and as a result there are quite a few descendants of these early, unrelated men in the project who do not match us (or anyone else). This proliferation of very early Kennedys makes our own research task even more challenging.

Jim Kennedy informed me that many testers are not serious about genealogy and quite a few tested solely in the hope of gaining bragging rights to a relationship with the President John F. Kennedy family. When they didn’t match that family (and almost none did), they quickly lost interest and failed to submit their own lineage details for the benefit of the overall project. This situation makes it difficult to compare our test results to other testers in order to eliminate false leads. For example, if our paper research identifies a potential Kennedy lead in Pennsylvania, we could (in theory) check the current database of DNA testers to see if any testers claim to be descended from the target in Pennsylvania, and we could then potentially eliminate the lead if the DNA results did not match us. However, the large number of testers who have failed to provide information about their ancestry somewhat frustrates this method.

So the bottom line result of the testing as it currently stands is that 1) we do not match the Augusta County, VA Kennedy family from whom we traditionally believed that we descended, and 2) we do not currently match any other Kennedys who are participating in the official Kennedy surname project. The thing to bear in mind, however, is that new testers are continually being added, and just because we do not have any matches today does not mean that we won’t have a match tomorrow, or next week, or next month or even next year. I once waited six years for a single match to a man I tested from Kentucky, but when the match came, it provided all the information we had hoped it would. The moral of this story is do not lose hope. The match will come. One fine day, it will come.

In the mean time, we are pursuing additional leads and an upgrade called the SNP Backbone Test. That test will help us more precisely narrow down our haplogroup and will shed some light on the deep ancestry and origins of our Kennedy lineage. In other words, our Kennedy family’s “ancient history.” While the results are unlikely to be of immediate value in helping us connect our David Kennedy of Russell County to his roots in Ireland (or less likely, Scotland), it may be an important first step in that effort. One other Kennedy tester (unrelated to us) was able to use such testing to pinpoint his exact haplogroup signature (called the “SNP”), which he then cleverly used to identify matching surname clusters in a single county in Ireland. By narrowing down his search geographically he was able to pick up his ancestor’s trail in the correct Irish county and trace back several generations. I am hoping to eventually achieve similar results for our family.

So that, my friends and relations, is the current state of affairs. I would like to make clear that these results should in no way diminish the sincere and dedicated efforts made by Wade P. Kennedy (or more recently by Curtis Wade Kennedy) to trace our family’s lineage. The astonishing volume of original courthouse documentation and obscure (often out-of-print) historical writings which have recently become available online has given us an advantage that neither man enjoyed when they attempted to piece together a history for our family from precious few reliable clues. Had either one of them had access to DNA testing or to the sheer volume of readily-available documentation (including many first-hand sources and original documents) that is available to us now, I have no doubt that either or both would have reached precisely the same conclusions at which we have arrived.

Having said this, I do need to address one additional error which springs from Wade P. Kennedy’s booklet: the tradition of our connection to Captain David Kennedy and Lt. John Smith of the Augusta County militia.

Once again owing to the volume of reliable primary and secondary source information that has recently been made available online, I was able to identify the Captain David Kennedy in question and follow him through the decades of the mid-to-late 18th century. That David Kennedy, a 5’7” merchant born in 1731 in Argyll, Scotland, enlisted in Robert Stewart’s Troop of Light Horse in November 1754. He served as a Captain and Quartermaster in the British Army and can frequently be found in records of Stewart’s unit during the French and Indian War. After the war, and likely on the strength of their military acquaintance, future President George Washington agreed to rent to Kennedy a farm located on Bullskin Creek (in present-day West Virginia). Washington’s confidence in Kennedy was misplaced. Kennedy failed to pay the agreed rent and skipped out, leaving a significant debt which Washington (through a series of factors and friends), attempted to collect for over a decade. After vacating Washington’s Bullskin Creek property, Kennedy removed to Winchester, in Frederick County, VA, where Washington continued to pursue him for payment. All attempts were met with frustration as letter after letter to Washington from his collection agents explained Kennedy’s reduced circumstances and advised Washington that the money was likely never to be had. Washington must not have been the only person Kennedy owed. By July of 1790 Kennedy had been sentenced to live within Winchester’s prison bounds on account of his debts. An increasingly aggravated Washington had asked Daniel Morgan, a friend and resident of Frederick County, to attempt to collect from Kennedy, but Morgan reported that “a bad woman which [Kennedy] kept for a house keeper made such a Deep stroke at him that [it had] frustrated all [Morgan’s] designs & left the old man poor indeed.” Morgan went on to report that Kennedy had “an estate in Scotland worth about￡500 sterling which he has been offering for [sale]” -- but I have been able to find no record of the estate in Scotland, nor any sale thereof, nor any satisfaction of Washington’s debt.

A ￡500 (presumably sterling) estate was substantial money in 1790 and had Kennedy been successful in liquidating the estate, he would likely have had sufficient funds not only to pay his debts, but to establish himself as a man of means in the county. A man that I have every reason to believe is the same Captain David Kennedy was appointed first High Sheriff of Frederick County and was a mason in the Winchester Lodge in the late 1790’s, so it appears he may indeed have been able to redeem himself.

I have found no evidence that Captain David Kennedy of Stewart’s troop (later of Bullskin Creek and Winchester, Frederick County VA) ever married. The fact that he kept an unscrupulous housekeeper tends to make me think he lacked a wife (not to mention discernment concerning women). As Wade P. Kennedy stated, Captain David did in fact serve in the Revolutionary militia of the district of “West Augusta” (an area that encompassed far more territory than present day Augusta County and included parts of western Pennsylvania), and his Lieutenant was indeed John Smith. However, there is no evidence that either man ever set foot in Russell County. Their service during the Revolution is reasonably well documented, and with the exception of a couple of brief details into Ohio and Pennsylvania, was mostly confined to the area around Frederick County, VA, where Kennedy was assigned to keep the peace and to guard a contingent of Hessian prisoners of war.

Our David Kennedy first appears in Russell County VA in 1790 when he obtained 50 acres of land from one Richard Price. If you will remember, Captain David Kennedy was confined to Winchester’s prison bounds in July of 1790.

Our David married Elizabeth Conway in Russell County in 1792 (although the month and day are illegible). Captain David apparently never married (no modern-day descendants appear to be claiming his lineage).

On 25 November 1793 our David Kennedy was still in Russell County VA where he was fined for “profanely swearing 3 oaths.” In November of 1793 the formerly destitute Captain David of Frederick County had apparently made good and was serving his first term as sheriff of that county, where we find records of him being bonded and appointed to his position of public trust on the 7th and 8th of November.

Captain David is still in Frederick County in October of 1794, the same year our David Kennedy shows up on the tax lists of Russell County VA.

The records of 1790-1794 appear to rule out the possibility that the two David Kennedys were the same. While not technically impossible, it is a great deal more than highly improbable.

So unfortunately we must lay another cherished family tradition to rest. If anyone can provide additional details or records to disprove my conclusion regarding Captain David Kennedy of Frederick County, VA, who served with Lt. John Smith in the militia of the district of West Augusta, I will happily investigate them. (If anyone would like to review the records I collected regarding Capt/Col David Kennedy, my 33 pages of working notes and unedited comments and observations are available online as a Google Doc.

In the mean time, I will continue to to pursue traditional methods of research as time allows, carefully monitor new DNA matches, and attempt to advance our knowledge of our Kennedy ancestry through SNP testing. While I realize that it may take time to absorb the implications of what we have recently learned and to come to terms with the small varying degrees of disappointment I know we must all feel, I hope you will join me in feeling encouraged that we can release old errors to make way for new research that will give us a truer picture of our family’s shared history. I will make every effort to keep the family apprised of new discoveries and developments on all fronts. My most profound thanks to all of you whose generous contributions made this valuable testing possible.

Just remember, this is not the “end result” of what we’ll learn from our tests, only the beginning.  

Y-DNA Testing: Where to Do It, Why to Do It, and How Many Markers to Test - Part 3

In Part 1 of this series we talked about where to test, and in Part 2, why to test.  Now let's talk about how to select the optimal number of markers to test.

Part 3 - How many markers should you test?

The simple answer is that you should test as many as you can possibly afford to.

I had a quick look at Family Tree DNA's product page and it looks like they are no longer promoting Y-12 or Y-25. I believe those can still be had for specific testing purposes by joining one of the surname projects, but the current public entry-level test now appears to be a Y-37 at a cost of $169.00. I believe that discounts may be available if you first search for the desired surname project and request a test through the project, but I am not sure. Try that method first, or search online for coupon codes specific to FTDNA or special limited-time offers.

Here's why more markers is better.

I touched earlier on the fact that unique mutations can appear through time within specific branches of a related family cluster. The higher the number of matching markers between you and another tester, the closer in time your common ancestor will likely be found. Higher level tests will help you narrow down a time frame for your mutual connection. In the case of my Henderson example in the previous article in this series, we are upgrading the Delmarva line (currently only tested at 12-marker levels) to compare to our own line which has already tested at higher levels. In this way we may be able to determine whether our common ancestor is likely to have lived before the older group first appears in Virginia in 1661 (in which case the shared connection would likely be in Scotland), or after 1661 (in which case the younger branch likely descends from the older).

Another reason to test at higher levels was mentioned in Part 1 of this series, but not explained. The 12-marker tests will often turn up a number of distracting non-surname matches. You may have shared an ancestor with these matches in pre-historic times, but probably not within historic memory, and in most cases you should not waste time and energy attempting to find the connection. Take my Brooks surname project for instance. At 12 markers, I currently have 151 matches! Imagine if I wasted precious time and resources trying to track all of those folks down just to discover we go back to Og who lived in a cave in Austria! (As if you could ever identify such a distant connection anyway.)

When I upgraded the Brooks test to 25 markers, I was still left with 106 matches, including a large number of testers with non-matching surnames. Too many leads to reasonably pursue. At 37 markers the red herrings and more distant matches begin to fall away, but I am still left with 27 leads. This is definitely a more manageable group, and probably an acceptable starting point for such a common surname, but what if I took things a step further and tested at 67 markers? 19 matches, but at this point, anyone within the same surname is definitely worth investigating further. Even some of the non-surname matches might turn out to be NPE's (non-paternal events) that could actually be genetic Brooks relatives. I typically don't focus my efforts on those, but it doesn't hurt to establish contact. One non-surname match actually suspected he was a Brooks on the male line, and his surname was already familiar to several of us through a maternal lineage. He had an interesting story to tell, but I digress...

By jumping in at 37-markers or higher instead of incrementally upgrading (which can ultimately be more expensive), I can much more quickly and effectively narrow down the matches that are most promising and relevant to my own research, and avoid wasting time on folks who might just muddy the waters to no discernible advantage.

This brings me to the subject of upgrading. If the cost of a 37-marker test is a barrier to entry for you, it is my opinion that it is far better for posterity to get a sample to the lab, even with at the inexpensive 12-marker level (especially for older relatives and most especially for lines that are in danger of daughtering out) than to do no test at all. Tests can always be upgraded in the future as funds become available, but if your potential tester dies, or if a line daughters out as you vacillate over cost, then you have lost a valuable -- possibly an irreplaceable -- opportunity.

In some cases, where there may already be a number of high-level, well-documented testers within a surname, and you simply want to verify your paper trail leading to that family, you can make do with a 12 or 25-marker test. That will be enough to tell you whether you're on the right trail, or barking up the wrong family tree. If it turns out you are a match at those lower levels, then you can always upgrade in order to see how far the match holds up or where mutations begin to appear, and therefore potentially identify exactly which branch you fit into.

So as a general rule of thumb, 111 is better than 67. 67 is better than 37. 37 is better than 25. 25 is better than 12. And for the love of heaven, 12 is better than nothing at all.

Important update 1/1/16: Although I already recommend the use of Family Tree DNA as the test facility of choice, a recent article on DNAExplained.com has raised serious ethical concerns in my mind about the privacy practices of Ancestry and 23andMe. Please read this before choosing to test through either of those two facilities.

Y-DNA Testing: Where to Do It, Why to Do It, How Many Markers to Test - Part 2

Part 2 - Why Do a Y-DNA Test?

In my previous article we talked about which testing facility to use when deciding to undertake Y-DNA testing for genealogical purposes. Now we'll look at why it's useful, which is closely tied to the number of markers you choose to test.

As I mentioned in the first article, Y-DNA testing is a rapidly evolving science and our understanding of the results it provides is changing on a daily basis. What holds true today may hold less so (or more so) tomorrow. But let's take a stab at this in the here and now. Why should you do a Y-DNA test? What, exactly, can it do for you?

First, I believe it's easier to start with what the test can't do for you.

The testing facility I prefer, Family Tree DNA, examines specific portions of the chromosome solely for the purpose of comparison with other testers in order to identify patterns that reveal familial relationships on the direct-male line. Unlike what 23andMe purports to do, a Y-DNA test through Family Tree DNA (or Ancestry.com, for that matter) will not tell you anything about your health, or that "you are a superb dancer." As I stated in Part 1 of this series, a FTDNA Y-DNA test cannot tell you if you carry a gene for cancer - it simply does not know.

DNA testing will not do your research for you. It will not provide you with a pedigree chart back to Adam, complete with family photos and amusing anecdotes. If you want that, join Ancestry.com and browse their trees, which are only as reliable as the researchers who post them (often not very). You might get lucky and your DNA test might connect you with another researcher who can provide additional generations and supporting photos and documentation, but Family Tree DNA's results will not do your work for you. Ancestry.com's DNA test may have an edge in that respect with any ability to integrate its test results with it's paid-access family trees, but again, the trees are only as reliable as the researchers create them.

A Y-DNA test from Family Tree DNA will simply provide you with a panel of seemingly random numbers and the names and contact information of your genetic matches. The numbers represent the individual values that count the number of repetitions between selected genetic markers. That information has no inherent value until you compare it to the results of other testers. The more numbers (marker repetitions) you match with other testers (especially within the same surname), the closer your relationship with that tester is likely to be. It is up to you to work with matching testers and figure out who your common ancestor is. While Family Tree DNA and Ancestry.com both provide general overviews about your deep ancestral origins, and haplogrouping (the depth and accuracy of which, again, depend on the number of markers tested), the real value of Y-DNA testing for genealogy lies in the two basic things a test can tell you.

First, a Y-DNA test can tell you who you are not. 

A genealogist will immediately recognize the potential usefulness of this, but let me give an example.

For two decades I wondered if my Corder relatives in early Frederick County VA were related to the only other 18th-century Corder family in Virginia -- a family who lived just over the crest of the Blue Ridge in neighboring Fauquier County. These two families were literally within walking distance, so although there was no paper trail indicating a relationship between them, given their proximity and the rarity of the surname, the likelihood of a relationship seemed very high. We fully expected to match genetically, but much to the surprise of both groups, a quick 12-marker Y-DNA test produced non-matching results! To rule out any non-paternal events skewing the results (that's just what it sounds like), we secured two newly identified and distantly-related testers from each family and upgraded all tests to 25 markers. The new tests confirmed the original results. The two families definitely did not share a common ancestor on the direct male line.

Does that mean that the two families were not part of the same historical family unit? That's a possibility that can't be ruled out. Perhaps a Corder ancestor somewhere along the line took his mother's surname, but was nonetheless part of the wider Corder story. On the other hand, it's always possible that a cuckoo slipped into the nest. We just don't know. There are limits to what the DNA can tell. This is why I spoke in the first article about the complexity surrounding interpreting test results -- there are exceptions to what seem like straightforward rules. It is up to you, the genealogist, to investigate and reason out your conclusions based on a combination of what the scientific data suggests, and solid paper trail documentation. Sometimes you end up with more questions than answers. Sometimes when you hear hoof beats you have to think "zebras," not "horses" (or vice versa). But the bottom line is that in this example case, DNA showed us that we are searching for different direct-male ancestors for these two families, despite the same surname and the close proximity of the two groups.

In a more straightforward example but along the same lines, consider how we might have used a DNA test to break through a longstanding brick wall for the Burgess family of central North Carolina. After years of traditional research, no male Burgess ancestor could be identified, only a female who we had always assumed to have married a Burgess and produced three male Burgess children. A simple DNA test would have shown a mismatch with others of the Burgess surname, and just as likely would have pointed researchers to matches within other families. I say other families (plural) because in this case, even the DNA among the descendants of the three brothers would not have matched (yep, that's right - different fathers). In this case, before the advent of DNA testing, we had to do a lot more digging before we discovered a "bastardy bond" (yes, there really was such a thing) that named the father of our particular Burgess ancestor as one "Elias Swift." A DNA test had the potential to have saved us a lot of effort and shown us the correct path a lot sooner. In this case, it could have told us who we were not (Burgesses) and possibly who we were (Swifts?). If I could identify a reliable male tester from this line, I could next compare him to the genetic signature of Swift descendants to see if our lady of the alternative 19th-century lifestyle was telling the courts the truth.

In one last example, another lineage I'm working on has a long tradition that they are descended from a prolific family of the same surname in central Virginia. The central Virginia family has a number of existing tests currently on file with FTDNA that match at high marker levels, thus creating a well-established genetic signature for that group, with which we can compare our own line's results. Our line has three tests in FTDNA's lab as I write. The results of these tests will tell us once and for all whether we need to stay on this same central Virginia family's trail, or look elsewhere. A match with the family in question would delight us all and possibly help us better understand the origins of an ancestor who met a tragic fate far from home. By the same token, a non-match, while initially disappointing (or aggravating in the sense that our family history will have to be "re-written"), has the potential to shed just as much light on our elusive ancestor if not more, in another way. A match with a different established lineage could be equally helpful. We might get lucky...

If you get lucky, a Y-DNA test can tell you who you are.

Notice that I said "if you get lucky." There are no guarantees. When I submitted my original three test samples for three different surnames back in 2006, I had no instant matches. Not a single person with whom I could compare my results. A big fat zero. But as the popularity of genetic genealogy has grown, zero matches is a lot less likely (though not unheard of), and as the years have gone by, the matching tests have trickled in, each one providing new revelations as well as new mysteries.

Just as the examples above showed how DNA can help you stop wasting time chasing wild geese, let me give you an example of how a test can actually show you who you are, and hook you up with the right researchers.

First, my Brooks family line was always problematic. Brooks is a relatively common name and there were Brooks families scattered all over the eastern seaboard, many lines tracing back through centuries. It was overwhelming and demoralizing to spend hours and hours trying to sort out all of the red herrings and unwind error-laden genealogies and questionable family trees compiled by other equally frustrated researchers (some of whom had finally given up and fudged the documentation just to get 'er done). Year after year went by and individually we were getting nowhere, often laying the troublesome Brookses aside to focus on other families.

The Y-DNA test quickly established a closely-knit group of matching (and therefore proven-to-be-related) Brooks researchers who have since set about advancing our understanding of our family's origins and migration patterns. A very knowledgeable and involved project administrator for the group has encouraged us to upgrade our tests in order to track unique mutations which can be used to identify specific branches within our family cluster. This allows new high marker-level testers to compare their specific mutations and gives them a better idea of which branch their ancestor might have come from. Without the original tests and the subsequent upgrades, we'd still be flailing around, stabbing in the dark at hundreds of unrelated Brooks connections across America. Our information-sharing between members of the correct family group, and our ongoing combined efforts have allowed us to push our research back several generations. A recent 111-marker test has even identified this family's origins in Norway 4,500 years ago, an interesting little bit of trivia surrounding our ancient heritage that explains how our ancestors may have come to be in England. (A' viking we will go, a' viking we will go...)

In another example of a test telling you who you are, my Henderson family of coastal and central North Carolina had wondered for decades whether they were connected to an older group of Hendersons who had settled on the Delmarva Peninsula in the mid-1600's. There was no paper trail connecting the two families. Subsequent DNA testing of the two lines at 67-markers has indicated not only a connection, but potentially a close one. All that remains is to identify it. In the mean time, we know that at the very least, the two family branches should be looking for a common ancestor in Scotland or very early colonial America, and can combine our research efforts towards that purpose.

Hopefully these scenarios will fire your imagination and you can begin considering in what ways the benefits of a DNA test have the potential to far outweigh the costs in your own research conundrums.

In the final article in this series I'll talk about how many markers you should test, and why more is almost always better.

Important update 1/1/16: Although I already recommend the use of Family Tree DNA as the test facility of choice, a recent article on DNAExplained.com has raised serious ethical concerns in my mind about the privacy practices of Ancestry and 23andMe. Please read this before choosing to test through either of those two facilities.

Y-DNA Testing: Where to Do It, Why to Do It, and How Many Markers to Test - Part 1

Part 1 - Where to Do It

Important update 1/1/16: Although I already recommend the use of Family Tree DNA as the test facility of choice, a recent article on DNAExplained.com has raised serious ethical concerns in my mind about the privacy practices of Ancestry and 23andMe. Please read this before choosing to test through either of those two facilities.

The popularity of DNA testing for genealogical purposes has grown quite a bit over the last decade, with Ancestry.com jumping on the bandwagon and the advent of 23andMe, so I want to talk a little about choosing a testing facility, understanding what the test can and cannot do, and selecting a marker level when you're considering a Y-DNA test.

I only want to address Y-DNA tests in this article since mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) tests are much less useful for tracing specific lineages. Remember that the Y chromosome is passed directly from father to son, so the Y-DNA test will only give you information about the direct male line of the tester. If you, Mr. Jones, want to find out about the ancestors of your maternal Grandpa Smith, your DNA is of no use in that respect. It may tell you about your Jones line, but it knows nothing at all about the Smiths. You must find a direct-line male Smith cousin and persuade him to test. But I digress...

The potential for using DNA testing to unravel tangled knots of sloppy genealogy and break through decades-old (if not centuries-old) brick walls first dawned on me in 2005 when I became aware of National Geographic's Genographic Project. I wondered how one might go about finding a laboratory that would agree to test my older male relatives, and if I could find such a lab, what I would then do with the results to make any sense of them.

I started poking around online and to my surprise and delight, I saw that Family Tree DNA was already up and running for just that purpose. I quickly ordered three Y-DNA tests: one for my father, a second for my maternal grandfather, and a third for my maternal grandmother's brother. In all three cases, over the last decade, the DNA tests have paid off in spades, connecting me to relevant researchers with proven genetic relationships to the three tested surnames. There have been some surprises, but those are stories for another day. Suffice to say that funds spent on genetic testing have the potential to offer a greater return than those spent on gas and hotels in the fruitless pursuit of records that turn out to be irrelevant at the end of the day.

First to the game, Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) gained an edge with their established surname projects and robust marker-level testing, and they have become the "official testing facility" of National Geographic's Genographic Project mentioned earlier. Their surname projects are often managed by professional genealogists or those who have assumed the position of genealogist for various organizations such as Scottish clans or similar surname or heritage groups. They also offer a number of online learning tools to help testers understand their results, and the value of having access to a surname project administrator with experience in genealogy and DNA results interpretation should not be underestimated.

With FTDNA, there is a focus on the science and the independent collaboration of the testers to understand the implications of their results rather than the building of complex family online trees or providing a workspace for collecting paper documentation. You test, you fill in some basic information about your lineage, you're informed of your matches, you have access to the surname project's results for comparisons to others of the same name, you can communicate with the surname project administrator and your genetic matches, and then it is up to you to work with matching testers and carry your paper research to the next level.

Since I only do tests through Family Tree DNA, I am not in a position to comment on the efficacy of Ancestry.com's process or that of 23andMe, however, there is a DNA blogger who has done a comprehensive comparison of Ancestry vs FTDNA tests, and it appears that there may be enough reciprocity between the results that if you have already Y-DNA tested through Ancestry.com, it is possible to share your results with FTDNA (there is a small charge involved with sharing results, so be aware of that when choosing to test with Ancestry).

The two facilities provide similar marker results (similar - not the same), lists of matches with the ability to contact the matching testers, and tools to help you glean understanding from your results. Ancestry.com is generally agreed to be more user-friendly, but in my opinion, a DNA test should be a serious tool in an arsenal that includes copious paper documentation as well as collaboration with other researches through multiple online genealogical forums, so I prefer to go with the more scientifically robust testing facility that offers the higher test levels and the most cutting-edge tools for analysis. But that's just me. As I said, a level of reciprocity between these two facilities makes Ancestry's results usable for basic comparison with FTDNA's official surname projects, so while I encourage serious genealogists towards FTDNA, I recommend you read the comparison on DNAeXplained and come to your own conclusions.

As for 23andMe, I don't consider it the strongest player in the game of genetic genealogy. There are concerns about the company's "cut-rate genetic testing" that have put it in the hot-seat with the FDA, as well as potential privacy concerns that could trip up unwitting testers. They give top-level, generalized, narrative results (which may include sensitive information about potential health issues), so while that may be of interest to some testers, it is not as useful for cross-referencing marker results with FTDNA or Ancestry.com for family research purposes.

Since I brought up privacy issues, there are a number of misconceptions surrounding privacy and DNA testing, and you should go into the process in an informed manner. I consider FTDNA's privacy practices to be completely reasonable and they address some common concerns on their website. Unlike 23andMe, FTDNA's testing is not designed to give you health information or provide amusing trivia such as "you'd make an excellent surfer" -- the markers are analyzed and interpreted strictly to compare and discern genetic patterns and similarities between testers for the purpose of identifying common ancestors and ancestral origins. DO NOT take a Family Tree DNA (or Ancestry) test to learn if you carry a gene that makes you susceptible to diabetes or cancer - it will not tell you. It does not know.

DNA testing for genealogists is a complex and evolving science. For every absolute there seems to be an exception. Sometimes DNA testing can raise more questions than it answers. Sometimes those questions can be awkward. In some cases the results can rock the foundations of who you think you are. You have to be prepared to accept what you learn. Much of what you can learn depends on the level of testing, and higher marker levels are almost always better (for instance, higher levels can weed out random non-surname matches that can appear at lower levels and turn into time-wasting red herrings). The more we learn, the less certain we seem to become about things we thought we knew. So why do it? And how many markers should you test? I'll cover that in second and third parts this series, so stay tuned.

Continue to next article in series.

For more information on the subject of DNA testing for genealogy, visit FamilyTreeDNA.com's Learning Center. If you have comments that might be helpful to those considering testing, please add them below.

In which I build a Google Map and attempt to plot 18th-century Kennedy families of the mid-Atlantic

A couple of months ago I began working in earnest to try to push my Kennedy family line back past ancestor David Kennedy, who died in the spring of 1800 while on a horse trading trip through the Carolinas.

Kennedy's young family in Russell County VA received a report that he had been taken ill during his travels and died suddenly. According to family lore, he was buried where he died, although the exact location has never been determined. Only a few months later his wife, Elizabeth Conway Kennedy, was killed in a dispute with a neighbor, leaving a young son and daughter orphaned. I wrote about that incident in a previous blog post.

We know very little about David Kennedy, but recent DNA testing has disproved the family tradition connecting him to the Augusta County VA family of Captain Joseph Kennedy (or, in fact, to any Kennedys currently participating in the Surname Project)

So I'm coming at the puzzle from both directions in time.

First I connected with modern Kennedy cousins to collaborate and share information on generations from the period of Kennedy's untimely death to the present. That work is ongoing and we will continue to pull together to try to discover the origin of our common ancestor.

Next I connected with Kennedy Surname and DNA Project Administrator James Kennedy to review the current results of the Kennedy Y-DNA tests to see if those could be of any assistance in identifying possible ancestors of our David Kennedy. After communicating with Jim Kennedy, it became clear that no comparisons could be made because no one from our Kennedy family had submitted a DNA test! Kennedy cousin Laura Smith identified three potential direct-line male testers and raised funds to pay for the tests, and after the typical delay of 10-12 weeks we had our answer. No matches. While this was discouraging news in one respect, it allowed us to sweep away decades of erroneous research and start with a fresh slate.

In the mean time, I have been plugging away at creating an interactive map (on Google) to help me sort out various clusters of Kennedys that I run across in my research. Who knew Kennedy was such a prolific surname!? The plotted points on the map are the results of logging the many random references in old books, stray Kennedys found in online data, already-researched Kennedy family groups from Ancestry and similar sites, and Kennedys whose locations can be discerned from the current chart of DNA test results.

The map will always be a work in progress, as there are still very likely hundreds (if not thousands) of markers to be added (I've charted less than 20% of the identifiable DNA tests at this point, for instance).

Bear in mind that this is a project intended to help my extended Kennedy family weed through, identify, and confirm or discard potential connections to our specific line. Therefore many of the comments that I've made in the plotted entries may not seem helpful to all Kennedy lines, however, it is my hope that just making a start at identifying and categorizing some of the known groups may be better than having no map at all.

Although the map is called "18th Century Mid-Atlantic Kennedy Groups" it has suffered from scope creep as descendants scattered to the wind and new immigrants arrived over the span of decades. In general though, I have tried to keep things contained the 18th century and the mid-Atlantic. There is an obvious focus on the families of PA/MD/VA/NC/SC, which is most relevant to my David Kennedy family project.

On the lefthand side of the live map you will see a key. I have tried to color-code the groups where possible to identify clusters that appear to be related. Dots indicate paper-trail research and teardrop-shaped markers mean we have a confirmed DNA test for the individual. So for instance, the light blue markers in the western NC area (refer to live map) are a mixture of dots and teardrops since we have several DNA tests for that line, but we also have a paper trail that allows us to identify additional individuals who are related to that same cluster.

Pale gray dots or teardrops indicate that the individual is not yet identified and/or matched with any other group.

An "X" before an individual's name means I have ruled that line out as being a potential match for my Kennedy family. The star-shaped markers indicate individuals that I feel may be strong leads for our group.

Again, this is a work in progress which is strongly tilted towards assisting descendants of David and Elizabeth Conway Kennedy of Russell County VA, but hopefully it can be of assistance to other families at the same time.

Click here to visit the live map on Google

New Images Posted in the Kennedy & Talbert Photo Collection

Now that I've recently been connected with other researchers of the the Kennedy and Talbert families of southwest Virginia, I have been able to add significantly to the collection of family photos on Flickr. There was quite a bit of intermarriage between the Horne, Talbert and Kennedy families so many of the photos in the album will be of interest to more than one surname's researchers.

I'm trying to grow the album with "oldies-but-goodies," so I welcome your Kennedy, Talbert or Horne family photos that date prior to 1925 (or no later than 1950). Please email me if you have images that you would like to contribute.

Click here to view the Kennedy & Talbert Family Photo Album

A "Swindled" Inheritance, and Other Kennedy Family Legends Examined

Through a happy coincidence, my last blog article on the Conway-Kennedy murder has brought me into contact with descendants of Forrest T. Kennedy (s/o John & Mary Horne Kennedy), who have long been involved with researching our extended Kennedy family.

My own connection to the family is at once distant and immediate. As a child, my grandmother would tell me endless stories of her childhood visits with "Grandma Brooks," a character who still looms large in Brooks family lore. Grandma Brooks was Ibbie Kennedy, daughter of Wiley F. Kennedy and Mary Elizabeth Talbert Kennedy of Russell and Wise Counties in southwest Virginia. Ibbie married my great-great-grandfather, Warren D. Brooks Jr. of Del Rio, TN, when he came to Wise County working on the railroads in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Sadly, Grandma Ibbie's father, Wiley F. Kennedy, died of epilepsy seven months before Grandma was born, and Mary Elizabeth Talbert Kennedy took Wiley's three small daughters to live with her parents, Thomas and Rebecca Gobble Talbert.

Mary Elizabeth later remarried to Squire Osborn, the girls' hated step-father (who Grandma referred to contemptuously as "Ol' Sqwar Ozburn"). I cannot tell how much contact the children had with their Kennedy relatives, but they must have had some. Grandma Brooks talked about her Kennedy cousins and I can remember my own grandmother speaking of an "Ackey Bud" (Ichabod) Kennedy, so there must have been some contact with her father's family, but no particular stories specific to the Kennedy family were among those passed down to my own grandmother. With one exception. And was it ever a doozie.

For a reason I could never quite understand, Grandma Brooks was under the impression that one of her cousins had traveled to Ireland and "swindled her out of her inheritance." (She didn't hesitate to name the cousin, but I do, as her accusations seem to be completely without foundation.) As a child, I accepted this story without question, obligingly imagining pots of gold covertly stashed, and castles sold away from the family by a scheming (and very distant) relation. In my teens when I started researching the Kennedy family, I quickly realized that while our ancestors of that name were not precisely poor, they were unlikely to have come from a family in Ireland of any particular prestige or wealth. I pressed my grandmother for more details, but she knew no more than she'd been told.

Years would pass, and life would happen, and I would lay my work aside. In the mean time, the internet went from a novel concept to the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind. So here we all are, able to view thousands of obscure records and writings at the stroke of a few keys, which is how I happened across Wade Powers Kennedy's 1941 book, The Name and Family of Kennedy and Powers, which is viewable online and downloadable as a PDF.

The book is "Dedicated to Future Generations who, it is hoped, will expand and extend this record and beautify it by good deeds that shine like diamond dewdrops in a meadow of the finest kind of living."

I could tell right away that our author was an optimist. He did nothing to disabuse me of this impression as he launched immediately into a florid passage about the "worthy deeds of the marching generations giving [the surname] dignity and splendor." (Oh dear, such high expectations of us all.) After a short discussion of the history of surnames, Mr. Kennedy (my 1st cousin 4x removed) gets right to the point, asserting that Kennedy "is one of the very ancient names," possibly meaning "head or chief of the clan." Perhaps so, but our line? Optimist, optimist, optimist.

After a brief mention of  a "Kenneth" associated with King Duncan of Scotland, he states that "It is probable however that the greater part of the family traces its descent from the EARLS of CARRICK" (his emphasis), a southern district of Ayrshire, Scotland, which lies south of the river, Deen. He goes on to mention Sir James Kennedy who married Mary Stewart, daughter of King Robert III of Scotland. Ohhhh, boy. Now I'm beginning to understand. Did someone show Grandma Brooks a copy of this book?

Mr. Kennedy is on a roll now. He posits a connection between this noble line of Kennedys and the ancestor of what I call the "adore" Kennedys: Theodore, Elmadore, Macadore, Shenadore, etc. In Section III (pg. 13) he moves to our own ancestor's line, David Kennedy "father of the Kennedy family scattered throughout the western part of Virginia and into other states."

He states that there are substantial reasons for believing that our ancestor, the David Kennedy who settled in Russell County, VA in the 1790's, "belonged to the Scotch line" of Kennedys coming down from Sir David Kennedy, the first Earl of Cassilis. In support of this he gives evidence such as "family resemblance, personal characteristics, accent in speech" (although how he became familiar enough to compare our family's qualities of speech with those of the long-dead Sir David, he does not explain).

Now, I'm not going to sport with your intelligence by entertaining a connection between the Kennedys of Russell County, VA and the purported ancient nobles of southwest of Scotland. I believe W.P. Kennedy did indeed have reason to believe there was a connection between our ancestor and a Scottish Kennedy line, and I will examine that later on in another blog entry. I do not believe he intentionally misled us about the origins of our family, but ever the optimist, he may have seen what he wanted to see, and made the connections that seemed most agreeable to someone of his obviously idealistic disposition. Time will tell, as research progresses. The old fellow might surprise me and turn out to be right. But don't hold your breath. If he is, I will write a blog entry titled "An Ode to Optimism," in which I give him his full due for very lucky guesses.

However, back to Grandma Ibbie's puzzling accusations. As of 1941, the story of the Kennedy family's glorious origins had just gone to print. I'm not sure how long prior to this, W.P. Kennedy's research into the family origins and resultant theories had been in circulation amongst the relatives. His family appeared prosperous by comparison to that of my Grandma Brooks (whose husband died when they were in early middle age, leaving my young great-grandfather to support her and his younger siblings). Wade P. Kennedy was obviously a scholarly author. His brother was a self-taught and successful local lawyer. Another brother started a franchise of Piggly-Wiggly stores in Wise County. I can just imagine Grandma's speculation about the source of their means and success. (Surely it could not simply have been the result of hard work? Much easier to believe it was the result of a stolen pot of gold...) 

I cannot be sure -- truly I cannot -- but I believe that Grandma Brooks made some sort of connection in her own mind between the grandiose origin tales and the success of her Kennedy relatives and posited a covert trip to Ireland on the part of one of them, wherein the cousin in question had somehow located the exact origin of wealthy Kennedy relatives in the old country and had managed to secure and dispose of family property without the knowledge of a multitude of other state-side cousins. What alternative explanation could there be for her own circumstances to be so reduced when her ancestors had been Kings and landed gentry, and her own cousins so comparatively wealthy?

Not being one to stand on ceremony, I instantly questioned my new Kennedy relatives about whether or not any Kennedys had been to Ireland or had located our family's origins there. They were utterly bewildered to hear of such a trip and replied that as far as they knew, no one ever had.

My feeling is that had that trip actually been undertaken (probably in the early 20th century), it would have been much discussed within the family, especially within the line of the family that went to great pains to collect the family's history, and such a trip would have been nearly impossible to hide from the other cousins and their descendants. I can think of no other plausible explanation for Grandma's tale, other than she having leaped to conclusions based on Wade P. Kennedy's (very likely incorrect) assertions of connections to Irish and/or Scottish nobility. But what a bizarre conclusion to leap to! 

If you are a descendant of John & Mary Horne Kennedy of Russell County VA and you can shed any light on my great-great-grandmother's fanciful tales of "swindled" (her word) Irish inheritances, or what might have given her such an idea, I hope you will add your comments below. I'm open to anything, but at the moment, this seems like the most plausible explanation I can contrive. I have long wondered what caused her to "tell such a tale" (to use the words of Prissy in Gone With the Wind), so any enlightenment would be welcome.

In the coming months I am going to examine other family stories from the W.P. Kennedy book and see how they hold up against new information that becomes available online and through the wonderful magic of DNA testing) The purpose of these examinations is not to detract from Wade Kennedy's priceless, wonderful preservation of our family's history, but to clarify and --to use his own words-- "to expand and extend [his] record" -- and if need be, to correct it based on new information that comes to light.

Elizabeth Conway Kennedy Shot Clean Off Her Horse. That'll Teach Her to Free-Range Her Cattle, I Reckon.

Recently a young cousin asked me for some information on her ancestry for a presentation she had been assigned in her honors civics class. Poor kid. She was deluged by pages of family history, charts and anecdotes, all straight from the Too Much Information Desk (a desk from which any avid genealogist writes at every possible opportunity).

One of the stories I related to her was the tragic tale of how our ancestor John Kennedy and his sister Mary Elizabeth Kennedy came to be orphaned in the year 1800. I didn't know very much about it myself, having only been told that one or both of the children's parents had been murdered, and having been unsuccessful in tracking down additional details.

Since new information comes online every day, I decided to have another look and this time I hit pay dirt. Allow me to relate to you the story of the tragic demise of David Kennedy and his wife Elizabeth Conway Kennedy, of Castlewood in Russell County, Virginia.

First, a word about the actors in our drama. It is believed that David Kennedy came from Ireland since, on the 1880 census, son John Kennedy gives his father's place of birth thus. David may have been widowed prior to his union with Elizabeth Conway. He had an older son, Samuel, who died in a tragic accident at Burton's Ford when a neighbor woman mistook him for a swan and shot him early one foggy morning as he was washing his face in the nearby river. I'm not making that up. Apparently the Burton family who lived across the river had been planning to shoot a wild swan that frequented the river bank, and when Samuel went down to wash (dressed in a white shirt in preparation for an impending trip to town), the trigger-happy Mrs. Burton fired away. (The Name and Family of Kennedy and Powers, W. P. Kennedy, 1941, p. 14-15)

Now, back to our story.

David and Elizabeth (called "Nancy" by son John) lived near the present-day town of Castlewood, close to the aforementioned Burton's Ford. Elizabeth Kennedy is generally believed to have been a daughter of Thomas Conway, whose property cornered with that of Henry and Elizabeth Kiser Hurst. According to the traditions of both families, a disagreement developed between the families when the Kennedys allowed their cattle to range free, resulting in damage to the Hurst crops. Elizabeth Hurst and Elizabeth Kennedy "engaged in bitter quarrels on more than one occasion" on account of the trespass.

Elizabeth Kennedy was a keen horsewoman and often rode out surveying her stock, or on errands. On the 10th of June of 1800, she rode into the local community and on her way back to her farm she encountered Elizabeth Hurst doing laundry in the creek just downstream from Bickley's Mill. Mrs. Hurst's infant son, Samuel, was laying on a quilt near his mother, and another son, Andrew, had just returned from hunting. The boy leaned his rifle against a large poplar tree and was trying to quiet his fussing brother when Elizabeth Kennedy rode into view on the road above the creek. As usual, the two women began to argue. One Hurst researcher says she has been told that Mrs. Kennedy "clubbed" Mrs. Hurst, which would imply that the two women were on equal footing, but most accounts agree that Mrs. Hurst snatched up her son's hunting rifle and shot Elizabeth Kennedy off her horse, which made it more likely that the victim was still on the road above the creek, and Mrs. Hurst was on lower ground within reach of the tree by the creek.

Mrs. Hurst was duly arrested for murder.

"The prisoner being arraigned at the bar, it was demanded of her whether she was guilty or not guilty. She answered she was not guilty. Whereupon divers [sic] witnesses being sworn and examined against her, and she being heard in her own defense: on consideration whereof it is the opinion of the court that the said Elizabeth Hursk [sic] for the offense ought to be tried at the next District Court to be held at Washington Court house on the 2nd day of October next, and thereupon she was remanded to jail." (Russell County VA Law and Order Book No. 3, Page 59, year 1800)

In case you're wondering how things went, she was acquitted, but her defense nearly bankrupted Henry, who had to sell part of his property to pay her way out of trouble.

Sadly, in the late winter or early spring of 1800, Mrs. Kennedy's husband, David, had gone south on his lucrative annual round of horse-trading through the Carolinas, never to return. According to his granddaughter Elizabeth Kennedy, as David was awaiting payment from the planters who had purchased his horses, he suddenly fell ill and died. There was no convenient way to return him to Virginia so he lies buried in an unknown location "somewhere in the Carolinas."  (Kennedy, p. 17) Perhaps the stress of her husband's recent death added to Elizabeth's decision to engage in the fatal quarrel with her neighbor, although more likely, from the sound of it, it was force of habit.

Thomas Conway Sr. and Richard Price administered the estate of the unfortunate Mrs. Kennedy. The orphaned children, John (about 3) and his sister Mary Elizabeth (about 5) were probably initially taken in by the Conway family, although a grandson of John insists that David's old friend from his militia days, John Smith, took the boy when his mother died.

In December of 1800 and again in October of 1804 the court ordered that the "Overseers of the poor bind Mary Kennedy, an infant orphan of Elizabeth Kennedy, deceased, to John Holbrook, according to law." The children were by no means paupers since their parents were moderately prosperous farmers, but the Overseer of the Poor was the legal authority charged with settlement of guardianship and payment from the estate for an orphaned child's upkeep.

Young John was most likley raised into his teens by his Conway relatives (possibly by the widowed Mary Conway Fletcher, his mother's sister). A friend of the family remembers that the Conway farm abutted her father's farm, and "Johnnie Kennedy" frequently cut across her father's land on his way to the public road. (Kennedy, p. 24) In 1814 John Kennedy left home to enlist in the Federal Army and served in Company A of the Virginia Militia during the war of 1812.

According to Wade Powers Kennedy, the family records were passed to granddaughter Ann Fraley Murphy (who was raised in the household of John and Mary Horne Kennedy) and were subsequently lost. However, there was no shortage of grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the unfortunate couple who had not heard every detail of their tragic story from the time they were knee-high to a grasshopper. I suspect the only reason I had not heard it myself from my own grandmother was because her "Grandma Brooks" (Ibbie Kennedy Brooks, granddaughter of John and Mary Horne Kennedy) had been raised in her mother's family, the Talberts (after her father Wiley F. Kennedy died during her infancy 1867).

The Kennedys, I can assure you, have long...long...memories. If Grandma Ibbie Kennedy Brooks had known the story, I haven't the slightest doubt that I'd have heard it with my own ears from the time I could understand the words "shot off her horse."