Archived news items 2008
News 26.7.08 From Dublin to Stornoway: 160 graveyards surveyed and mapped! (mapping by Archer Software). A complete list and further Kennedy cultural trip reports to follow shortly. Plus lots more Kennedy distribution maps.
News 18.7.08 Another one-day tour of historic Kennedy sites in south Ayrshire! The trip centered around the Kennedys of Craig near Colmonell..
News 14.7.08 I have made available a transcribed index of almost all the civil marriage registration records for the surname Kennedy hosted at the Guild of One-Name Studies website. More details here.
News 14.7.08 Good trip to highlands and western Isles, mainly to visit the crofting community of Crossbost, one of the last strongholds of the highland Kennedies. Also had interesting discussions at Inverness library with Highland Council genealogist Alistair MacLeod on Gaelic etymology.
News 6.7.08 The Study has simultaneously broken two major milestones with our 50th DNA test participant and 50,000 individuals in the 'paper trail' database.
News 20.6.08 revised 27.6.08 The West End Festival in Glasgow is graced by two Kennedy speakers. West End author AL Kennedy did a reading of a new short story due to be published next autumn; I also met her briefly and got a signed copy of her latest book 'Day'. AL will also be at the Stand Comedy club at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Friday 20th we were delighted to welcome the new Rector of Glasgow University, Lochaber man Charles Kennedy MP, former leader of the Liberal Democrates, to talk about his life.
Charles Kennedy MP (right), Rector of Glasgow University, speaking at Hillhead Library in Glasgow.
News 18.6.08 (updated 2.8.08) Former Kennedy clan seat Cassillis Castle is now on the market for £2.5 million (offers were to close by 23rd July so watch this space). The seat of the Kennedy clan is reverting to Culzean Castle. For a lesser price you can obtain the ruins of Baltersan castle, another former Kennedy home.
News 14.6.08 Glasgow Kennedys 10km update - there are 11 Kennedy men in the start list... Apart from preparation for the above, the Kennedy study project has been very busy and I have added several thousand entries to the database. The old software - a cumbersome combination of FTM2005, Ged2CSV and Microsoft Access, has been thrown out in favour of a single solution using Microsoft's flagship relational database product, SQL Server 2005. This has facilitated data mining and some bulk operations, although it has temporarily slowed other tasks down whilst I develop the stored procedures to action them. I have finally finished a study of all the Kennedys born in 1920, the year which saw the highest ever number of Kennedy births in Scotland with 208 males born. (These numbers are similar to those in Ireland, where the 1921 total male/female was 375 dropping to 239 in 1922 with the loss of six counties). Each one has been traced back as far as could reliably and quickly be done in the civil and parish registers. The trip to Ailsa Craig with the island's owner has been deferred until later in the summer. In place of that, I visited Dunkeld cathedral where Bishop James Kennedy first worked before moving to greater things at St Andrews, and added pictures to his page. There were no Kennedys amongst the burials at the cathedral but there were some in Little Dunkeld as listed on the cemeteries research page.
News 19.5.08 Congratulations to all the Kennedys who finished the Bellahouston Womens 10k in Glasgow on Sunday - all 40 of them! First female Kennedy was Gillian in 46:12. Let's see if the men fare any better next month on the same course ... (including this project leader :-)
News 12.4.08 'Class of 63' project is finished. That's right, I have now researched the entire Kennedy ancestry of every Kennedy born in 1963 (all 147 of them)! An unfortunate downside of this is a slight rejuggling of my new list of top 10 Kennedy family trees, with Rankin Kennedy of Kilmarnock now pushing the legendary Brackletter Kennedys out of the top 10!!
News 2.4.08 Ailsa Craig granite will again be used for curling stones at the next Winter Olympics in Canada in 2010. The rival manufacturer in Ontario, who use granite from Trefor in Wales, were controversially not permitted to even bid. Ayrshire firm Kays are the approved manufacturer for the World Curling Federation.
News 17.2.08 (revised 2.4.08) Lochaber man Charles Kennedy MP was elected Rector of Glasgow University on February 27th. Kennedy is a Glasgow graduate and former President of the Glasgow University Union.
News 1.1.08 (revised 7.2.08) ScotlandsPeople have released the latest years online BMD data - births 1907, marriages 1932 and deaths 1957. There were 89 male Kennedy marriages in 1932. Of those, 31 were in Glasgow City, with Cambuslang and Anderston top with 4 each. Male births 1907 totalled 193 and male deaths 1957 totalled 93. Indexes only are now available for all births and deaths; the marriage indexes are due to be updated shortly. The post-cutoff images are still only available at Edinburgh or Glasgow due to privacy rules.
