This Biographical Dictionary began as an Index of all known members of the Kenny Family of New Brunswick descending from John Kenny Senior who was born in Co Laoix (renamed Queens) Ireland in 1795 and arrived in Northern New Brunswick circa 1826.

In time I became interested in the female families who married into the Kenny family and in the female descendants who married away from it. Unexpectedly, I found there were many inter-marriages between these families, repeatedly with the same families, but also between cousins 3 or 4 generations away with surnames other than Kenny, but both being descendents of the forbear John Kenny Sr.   There were repeated connections throughout the generations with families such as Allain, Savoie, Robichaud, Basque, Kerry, Grattan, Mallet, and Ross. These families in turn tended to marry repeatedly into families such as Fayle, Loggie, Taylor, McKnight, Savage, Innes, Robertson and Russell.

 

This turn of events intrigued me greatly, because these were the families of Bartibog Bridge NB, among whom I had grown up and among whom ours was the only family surnamed Kenny. It began to be obvious that everyone was related in some way to every other family in the area. Moreover, I began to find connection with families of Prince Edward Island, including lines of Kenny’s who were not descended from our John Kenny Sr, and whose relationship to us has yet to be determined.

 

The Prince Edward Island connection should not be surprising at a time in Canadian history when the Miramichi and “The Island”, as it was familiarly known, were easily and speedily connected by boat, while road travel was tedious and difficult. Nearly everyone on the Miramichi owned or knew someone who owned a boat. And there was considerable trans-Atlantic trade between England and the colonial ports at St-Johns, Miramichi, Paspebiac, Shippagan and Prince Edward Island.

 

The connections between these families became of greater interest to me than simply constructing a family tree. There has been much work done overall on Acadian families of New Brunswick, but much less on Anglo-phone (Scots and Irish) families, except within the individual families. In most family trees I have seen, including those of the Acadian families the ancestry of the wives and the offspring of the daughters are invariably ignored in the interests of pursuing the lines of the male surname. I wanted to explore and maintain those connections in creating my dictionary.

At this point, besides the Kenny Tree and all the connections of my immediate and extended family, I am focusing on, but not limiting myself to, families living in mid-twentieth century Bartibog Bridge and their connections, ancestors and some descendants of the larger Miramichi Bay area and the Acadian Peninsula.

 

This is not a Family Tree. However, its elements can be used to construct a Family Tree -- or rather a  Family “Forest”, since this Dictionary includes many connections by marriage (England, Forbes, Grattan, Savage, Mallet, Josefowich) and their known forebears and some collateral relatives and descendants as well as Kenny descendants who resided outside of New Brunswick; descendants of daughters who married outside the Kenny family (Ross, Prokosh, Taekema); and connections to Savoie and Robichaud family members, many of whom are described in my unpublished document  “Les Savoie: Acadian Roots on a Kenny Tree”.