Hugh Thomson Kennedy ²¹¹

  General Notes:

Richard Braley notes:
Hugh Thomson Kennedy was the youngest son of Alexander and Agnes Shaw Kennedy. He came to the United States in 1881, with his wife and family following two years later. His oldest sister was Agnes Shaw Kennedy, who may have gone from Scotland to Australia as early as 1855. A younger sister, Margaret Kennedy and her brother James went to Australia around 1864 as noted in your narrative.

Richard Braley adds:
Hugh Thomson Kennedy was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland on Nov 14, 1846. He was the son of Alexander Kennedy (1802-1876) and Agnes Shaw (1806-1862). The census of 1851 in Scotland shows that Hugh is the youngest of 7 children (Mary, Robert, Agnes, Alexander, Margaret, James, Hugh). Subsequent records show that this was an emigrating family with three going to Australia and Hugh to the United States. Ten years later, the 1861 census of Scotland shows that Hugh and his next older brother James were living with his sister Mary Thomson and her husband Thomas Thomson. They had children Alexander, Agnes S, Thomas, John, and Robert.
The 1871 census of Scotland shows that Hugh was married to Jane (Jeanie). They had married Dec 8, 1868. Jane Hendry Clark, born on Dec 10, 1842, may have been the daughter of John Clark and Catherine Reston, but that is not clear. Ten years later he was working as a railway clerk and they had three children: Alexander Shaw Kennedy, Catherine Robertson Kennedy, and John H. Kennedy.
The 1881 Scotland census shows that Hugh was a railway clerk and that all five were together at 31 Brown Place. US census records show that Hugh arrived in this country in 1881. US census records show that Catherine arrived in this country in 1883. Piecing together the story was complicated. Jeannie, Alex, Kate, and John arrived in Boston on the Phoenician on June 13, 1883. The family ultimately live at 8 Lorette St in West Roxbury. Hugh became a US citizen in 1887.
Jeanie died on Jan 23, 1894 from Mitrial Regurgitation.
There were two events in this family in 1895. On March 27, Hugh remarried, marrying Margaret Y. Carney of Boston. Both were from Scotland. It was the second marriage for both. They had at least two children. Their first child, Agnes Shaw Kennedy, was born on March 18, 1896. She died on April 6, 1900 from diphtheria. Hugh Thomson Kennedy Jr was born August 20, 1898. He was living at home on Lorette St as of the 1920 census. Margaret brought two children to the second marriage from the first: John and Andrew.
The second event in 1895 was the marriage of Alexander Shaw Kennedy to Catherine McDonald on August 31, 1895. She lived in Somerville and the marriage was there. Their oldest child was James A., born on Jan 3, 1896, not quite 3 months before Agnes. He was Hugh Thomson Kennedy Sr's first grandchild. The second child, Jeanie Blanche, was born on April 2, 1898, 4 ½ months before Hugh Thomson Jr. After the birth of James, they moved to River Street in Hyde Park before moving to Quincy. The youngest child, John Hugh was born in Quincy on Jan 6, 1907. Alexander died Nov 5, 1950.
John H. Kennedy the youngest child of Hugh and Jeanie died in Boston on Nov 13, 1902 at age 24. The cause of death was meningitis. He was not married.
The middle child was Catherine (Kate) Robertson Kennedy. The 1900 census shows her both living on Lorette St as well as working for Clara Wentworth, a dressmaker who lived nearby. When she married Frank S. Braley on July 18, 1900 her occupation was shown as dressmaker. This was his second marriage and her first. They had five children: Savory Charles, Jan 1, 1902; John Kennedy, April 11, 1904; Jane (Jean), March 14, 1907; Frank Alexander, Oct 2, 1908; and Hugh Thomson, Oct 7, 1911.
Hugh Thomson Kennedy died March 3, 1924 at age 76.

  Research Notes:

Carolyn Darby notes:
What I learned through your contact with Robyn is very interesting: that my father's (Keith PATrick Symes) mother's father had a brother Hugh who emigrated to North America somewhere (I'm not sure if I was told where). My grandmother (Mary Margaret Symes, nee Kennedy, daughter of James who immigrated to Australia with his sister Margaret, who married John Plant Wright) on Ida in 1864, arriving January) died at age 60 in December 1930, so as I was born in January 1940 I did not know her. When I first started tracing family in 2006 I discovered from the shipping logs that James, an "iron turner" (later described as an engineer) and his older sister Margaret, a milliner, already had a sister Agnes living in Sydney but I still can't decipher the writing of her last name (I guess she was married); it could be Alvin, Alcorn, Cilour. I don't suppose you have a clue? The log entry gave her address as cnr of Stanley and what looked like Brown St, but was probably Crown St. I have looked in the Sands' directory around 1864 but couldn't find any likely names.
I learned a lot more about the Wright family, but very little about Margaret herself, a few years ago from the records held by the 90-year-old Gdaughter, who has since died, of the eldest son of James and Ann, nee Lamont/d (native of Tiree, Scotland). I have since been told by the Gson of Agnes Pratten, eldest daughter of Margaret and John Plant Wright, that John Plant was also on the Ida. The story is that he was in the leather business and travelled out with a few others in the same trade. They all started separate shoe manufacturing businesses. Seems amazing that they each had customers enough in a Sydney population of 56,000! But they must have done well to live in a big house in a then fashionable suburb, Ashfield, then built a big one in a prominent position overlooking Manly beach above the surf club (my father said that Margaret used to ring a bell if she saw a shark from the verandah. They only lived there for about seven years because they died within two months of one another (Margaret first) in 1912. But JPW had found time to build a house for each of his daughters and also his namesake John Plant, the youngest of nine (I think without checking my records) children close by in Manly. Agnes, who married Herbert Pratten, a soon to become politician, lived in the Ashfield house. There is a Barnett Family (haven't tried to find out where they fit) Tree on Ancestry that says of Margaret: "Stayed in her room a lot. Wardrobe drinker." After all those kids, I don't wonder! but she must have gone out on the verandah to look for sharks, because that is all Dad remembered about her-he would have been only nine when she died. I know a lot more about the Wright/Pratten family, met offspring who aren't all that interested in knowing we are related-think there must have been a family split between the step brothers or their families, though it was Herbert who came to Australia first and Frederick followed and joined Herbert in his original venture-a cordial cum jam business. They were also into tin in New Guinea and then printing was developed mainly by Fred I think while Herbert went into Federal parliament. He died at 63 in 1928 speaking to a group of women constituents at the Masonic Hall, Turramurra, the suburb next to where I grew up and two away from where I live now. I think you might know all that because I just saw an unidentified-author entry on the Internet that looks like what I wrote to Robyn.

  Noted events in his life were:

• connection. ²¹¹ Richard Braley 's connection to Robert is as follows:
Richard Braley (1945)
His father was Frank Braley (1908)
His father was Frank Braley (1869) who married Catherine Kennedy (1876)
Her father was Hugh Thomson Kennedy (1848)
His father was Alexander Kennedy (c1810) & he also had Margaret Kennedy (c1842) who married John Plant Wright (c1850)
They had Ethel Wright (1883) who married Reginald Passau (1879)
His father was Frederick Passau (1842)
His father was Samuel Passau who married Matilda Dawes (1818)
Her father was Aaron Daw (1779) & he also had Edward Dawes (1813)
He had James Dawes (1843)
He had Annie Florence Dawes (1873) who married Arthur Augustus Bray (1869)
They had Albert Alan Bray (1896)
He had Robert Alfred Bray (192)
He had Robert Arthur Bray (1947) who married me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

Hugh married Jane Hendry (Jeanie) Clark on 8 Dec 1868 in Scotland UK.²¹¹ (Jane Hendry (Jeanie) Clark was born on 10 Dec 1842 ²¹¹ and died on 23 Jan 1894 in Boston, Massachusetts USA.). The cause of her death was Mitrial Regurgitation.

Hugh next married Margaret Y. Carney on 27 Mar 1895 in Boston, Massachusetts USA. (Margaret Y. Carney was born circa 1870 in Scotland UK ²¹¹ and died in Boston, Massachusetts USA.)