Kenny's from Tipperary to Ontario Canada - 1840's

This web site produced Dec 2002 in part by Personal Ancestral File, a product of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Updated Dec 2002 - all files and reports Author John Kenny

In the period 1835-1840 Kenny's, Madden's and O’Meara’s traveled from their homes in Tipperary to Ontario, Canada, specifically the Ottawa river valley. It was reported by Catherine O'Meara, wife of Michael O'Meara jr, that they all came over together; Mary Nolan Madden with her two sons and two daughters, Michael O'Meara with his wife Julia Madden O'Meara and their son and 2 daughters and John Kenny, son of Michael Kenny and Honora Madden, with his brother Michael and sister Mary Ann. Although no ships records exist to confirm this fact, I believe this could be true as the Irish large family groupings were how they survived. The voyage to Canada was a risky venture at best. They were often 4 to 6 weeks at sea in ships that were used to transport lumber from Quebec to England which were retrofitted once they arrived to passenger ships for the journey back to Canada. A lot of Irish referred to these ships as floating coffins. If some one died on board the body was hid so that when they arrived in Canada the surviving family members could provide the person with a decent burial. If the body was found by the sailors then a burial at sea occurred. This burial at sea was, to the Catholic Irish, an abomination. The ties that these families had in Ireland went very deep, were maintained and further increased by marriage as they settled into life in pioneer Ontario of the mid 1800's. The reasons for their coming are now lost but the famine was not present in a severe form in Ireland until the 1842-47 period. The reason for leaving Ireland in the 1835-40 was primarily economic due to a lack of land that was able to support a new family as the population of Ireland was growing by leaps and bounds and the farmland was being divided into smaller and smaller parcels. This fact coupled with the movement to industrialization of the flax industry resulted in fewer jobs that the unskilled farming Irish could acquire. They had little hope for a future in Ireland. The early Madden's and O'Meara's could read and write but there is no evidence (church records) that the early Kenny children had that skill. However, they had the good sense to marry people that had the academic talent. Read on....

 

Table of Web File Contents

Prepared by:

John Emmett Kenny

1498 Roberval Avenue;

Orleans, Ontario, K4C 2A4 or

[email protected] or Tel: 613-830-8579

 


Interest Areas


Background Information

John E Kenny and his childrens' ancestors

I am a direct descendant of John Kenny of Tipperary Ireland. I recently retired and according to everyone in my family I needed a project to occupy my time (a nice way of them telling me that I am a bother). I had in the back of mind for some time to start a family tree project. In other words , I was to become a D.P.H. (Dead People Hunter). I approached my Aunt Amy Larock (nee Kenny), the last of my fathers generation, to see what has been done in the area of family history and who is doing it. With her help and over many servings of her apple pie, we started to gather all the bits of information, pictures, stories and memories that exist in our family.

As in most Irish families many of the stories and history have been passed down as an oral record. Truly, It is these stories that fascinate me the most . As I continue with this research I am amazed at the hardships that these people had to overcome and I hope to record a lot of these events in the web pages. I conclude that without their sense of humour, their ingenuity and their strong work ethic; few of us would be reading this page today.

The Landreville family, my mothers French Canadian  side, can trace their roots back to 1610 in France. All of these culture combinations makes for interesting research work

In conclusion, I have signed on for the long haul with all of these projects. If my father (Lorne Emmett Kenny) were alive he would undoubtedly say "If you going to start something then finish it, something half done is no flaming (old Irish exclamation) good"

List of major contributors and content editors

·         Hilda Warnock, Ottawa, Canada (Kenny, Warnock research)

·         Rod Warnock, New South Wales Australia (Warnock research)

·          J Gauthier of www.association-gauthier.org  (Gauthier dit Landreville research) Excellent site

·         Lynn Logue (Warnock research)

·         Lynn Martin(Warnock research)

·         Marc Landreville (Landreville research)

·         Pat Warnock, Orleans Ont (Warnock research)

·         Wendy Thompson, Lively, Ontario (Shea, Kenny research)

·         Alexa Pritchard, Ottawa,Ontario (Shea, Kenny, Madden, Omeara research)

·         Lawrence Kenny, Sparta NJ [email protected] (Famine history, Kenny research and many old Pics)

·         Paddy Kenny Ireland (Photos of Irish graveyard, School, and much additional research)

·         Averill Weeks , Phoenix AZ (Omeara research)

·         Jo Ann Kenny , Orleans, Ont, Canada, (Kenny research and editing)

·         Kathy Madden Adamson,11381 East South St  Walkerton, IN 465574

 Author:”Emmigrant Fathers, Native Sons, Shane Family of Prescott 1817-1990”(Madden , Omeara Shea research)

·         Amy Larock (Kenny),Ottawa, Canada (Kenny research)

·         Dugal Chatel St Famille D’Aumond ( Brunet, Chatel research)

 Author: Castor Blanc, Riviere St Joseph 1SBN:2-9805627 National Library of Canada

 


Current Projects

Kenny's of Ontario

The Kenny's arrived in Canada in approximately 1835. John (b-1819), Michael (b-1824) and a sister ( Mary Ann b- abt 1822) of Tipperary, Ireland settled in Lower Canada (now known as Eardley near Aylmer, Quebec). Later, in 1855, John and Michael purchased farm lands in Gloucester and Cumberland Townships in then Carleton County Ontario.

Landreville's of Ontario and Quebec

The Landrevilles' can trace their ancestry as far back as 1610 when Mathurin Gauthier-dit -Landreville left the town of Lege in Nantes, France to emmigrate to a better life in New France. now Quebec City, Canada.

Chatel and Brunet of Maniwaki Quebec

 This is the story of Scottish and Irish immigrants and how they carved a life and prospered in a small northern Quebec town of Maniwaki amongst the early French settlers and the Algonquin tribe of Quebec

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Hot List for Geneologists

 

Cyndi's List - Alphabetical Category Index

One of the very best sites around a great starter site

FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service

This is the site of the mormon church .They are the inventors of the GEDCOM file format used to store and transfer

geneological data. Their Paf file for storing family tree info is freeeeeeee.

Cumberland Township Historical Society

This is the site for the Cumberland Township Historical Society

Belden maps online

This is the site that has viewable 1879 maps of the Ontario Counties and Surname to location searches. A really good starting point to orient yourself geographically

Gloucester Township Historical society -no web site as yet

Jennifer Busato.

Their address is 4550b Bank St, Gloucester Ont K1T3W6\par 613-748-4352 or [email protected]

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Comments and Suggestions

The purpose of this Web project is to make this family information widely available to the many people involved in gathering family information. A second objective is to have family members review this information and to send me updates to the information and copies of any ancestoral pictures for inclusion in this web site. A third objective is to build an online list of addresses of people who are willing to serve as family history contacts in Canada and in the States. If you have any information or ideas on how to make this all come together. Please send me mail telling me what you think about this page/project and how I might improve it. I truly welcome all input

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Send e-mail to: [email protected]