KENNEDY Origins and DNA

I have traced my KENNEDY line back to the marriage of Hugh KENNEDY and Mary FERGUSON in Dull, PER in 1751. This research was carried out using traditional methods, but I've now reached what seems to be the end of the trail in the old parish registers. The Dull registers go back some way beyond 1751, but don't contain Hugh's baptism, nor have I found any other likely baptisms in the rest of Perthshire. It's possible that he might have come from the neighbouring parish of Fortingall, but frustratingly the earliest registers to have survived there start in 1748. Nevertheless, I've come across the following few hints as to Hugh's origins, but unfortunately there's nothing conclusive as yet.

The 1740s and 1750s were a tumultuous time in Perthshire. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 involved many local men, and in its aftermath many of those who had supported the Jacobite cause had their land taken away. These are listed in "Statistics of the Annexed Estates, 1755-1756", and can be found with the help of a free index produced by Gordon Johnson.

The index gives details of the lands forfeited, together with the names of the tenants. Among these was a Hugh Kennedy, "cottar in Waster Camghuran" - i.e. Wester Camghouran, on the south shore of Loch Rannoch, in the parish of Fortingall, and about 16 miles from the village of Dull. According to the Dull parish register baptism entries for the children of my Hugh, in the 1750s he was living in Farleyer - my best interpretation of the register entry - and Balnabruch (these are both fairly close to Dull village), so this entry in the Annexed Estates must relate to a different Hugh Kennedy. I haven't found a baptism for him either.

My Hugh married in 1751, but in 1739 there was a marriage in Dull between Hugh Kennedy and Margaret ROBERTSON. (I haven't found any children of this 1739 marriage.) One possibility might be that Margaret died some time between 1739 and 1751, and Hugh married again in 1751 - but I have no evidence to support this, and it's all still speculative.

One of the witnesses of this 1739 marriage was also called Hugh Kennedy. Could this be the Hugh in Wester Camghouran mentioned in the Annexed Estates? And could he also have been the groom's father - and thus possibly father of my Hugh?

The 1739 marriage entry describes the couple as "Hugh Kennedy & Margaret Robertson in Foss both in the paroch of Dull". Foss is in the parish of Dull, but to the north of Dull itself, at the western end of Loch Tummel and a short distance downstream from Loch Rannoch. Does that entry mean that both parties were in Foss, or just Margaret? Apart from this ambiguous entry, which may not even relate to him, I have no evidence that my Hugh ever lived in Foss, although Hugh's grandson David Kennedy lived near there after his marriage in 1804.

If these bits of information do relate to my family, they seem to suggest that my Hugh came from a Kennedy family living in the Rannoch area. But before that? One possibility is that they came from Lochaber, on the west coast of Scotland and roughly north-west of Rannoch. This might account for the lack of evidence for baptisms in Perthshire, but it's also consistent with what is thought to have been the general pattern of settlement, according to which highland Perthshire was occupied by people coming over the mountains from the west rather than up the valleys from the south and east.

In spite of there being only sparse paper evidence for Kennedy origins, all is not lost. The Kennedy DNA project is using yDNA (male) to try to identify different family lines, in the hope that this will eventually corroborate the paper evidence and help to fill some of the gaps. The project has a very broad scope and its website includes a lot of information, but of particular relevance to me is this article on the origins of Kennedy families in Dull.

Through the project I have been in touch with someone whose DNA is a very close match to mine, meaning we almost certainly have a common ancestor - the question is, who? This person's line goes back to a Robert Kennedy who married Christian KENNEDY in Dull in 1783, so may have been born in about 1760 or so. My Hugh and Mary had a son Robert in 1763, but there were also other Robert Kennedys baptised around that time, and the locations given in the baptism entries suggest that one of these others might possibly be a more likely candidate. If so, then the connection will be somewhere further back. Interestingly, Robert and Christian were in Foss when they were having children in the 1780s and 1790s, which might hint at a connection to the Hugh who married in 1739.

That is all I know at present. It's not enough to base any conclusions on, but I'm hoping that one day the DNA evidence will help to show which other Kennedy families we connect to, both in Dull and, with any luck, further afield. Meanwhile, if you can help with any of these questions, and particularly if you can shed any light on the connection between my Hugh and the Robert who married in 1783, do please get in touch.