Joseph Kearney was Barack Obama’s 6x great-grandfather. This pedigree chart shows his wife, siblings, nieces and nephews. Read on for further information on some of these individuals. Thomas Kearney Thomas was witness to a lease dated 1768 (Bettridge to Kearney) and describes himself as a ‘peruke-maker’. He married Miss Jane...
Joseph Kearney was Barack Obama’s 7x great-grandfather. This pedigree chart shows his wife, sibling, and nephew. Read on for further information on some of these individuals. [insert chart] Joseph Kearney Joseph was probably born circa 1698. He was buried 20th Jan. 1791 ‘aged 93 years’ in Shinrone, Co. Offaly. Cicerly...
Within the extended Kearney family tree we found an early involvement in politics. Michael Kearney, a kinsman and probably older brother, of Joseph Kearney, entered the Guild of Barber Surgeons and Periwigmakers in 1717, and was entered as a Capillamentarius (i.e. a hair dresser) in the Freemens Rolls in 1718....
Fiona Fitzsimons of Eneclann met with cousins Dick Benn and Tom Donovan, President Obama’s closest living relatives in Ireland, to discuss Eneclann’s research into the Benn and Donovan families for RTE’s Nationwide programme. In 1825 Joseph Kearney of Moneygall married Phoebe Donovan. Phoebe Donovan’s parents were Fulmoth Donovan and Mary...
Our research showed that in the 1760s the Benn and Donovan families first settled in the townland of Ballygurteen, and that nine generations of the Benn family have farmed the land down to the present day. The Donovans likewise remained in Ballygurteen down to 1999. The identity of both families...
The Benn family have demonstrated a strong entrepreneurial streak down through the generations. Dick’s grandfather ran a hardware shop in Roscrea in the 1920s and 30s, in addition to the farm. Dick’s great-grandmother Susan Benn (nee Wakeley) who jauntily recorded her trade as ‘confectioner’ in her 1879 marriage certificate, established...
In March 2010 during a live radio interview with the late Gerry Ryan, Fiona Fitzsimons ‘outed’ Dick Benn as a cousin of president Barack Obama’s. “We came across the Benns when we were researching the President’s Kearney ancestors” she explains. “I thought everyone knew of the connection, and didn’t think...
By compiling a 9 generational family tree, Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss were able to make some interesting observations about the President’s extended family – the Benns, Donovans and Kearneys. Close relationship between the Benns and Donovans From the 1760s the Benns and Donovans lived side by side in the...
Our research to this point showed that the name Benn had a certain ‘rarity value’ in the Irish records. The records used to compile the family tree also went towards constructing a ‘family profile’ indicating the Benn family had ‘substance’ Family marriages took place by Marriage License Bond rather than...
Using documents from the Registry of Deeds, Eneclann’s researchers identified three distinct but interconnected clusters of Benn/ Behn families between 1719 and the early 1800s in Limerick, Galway and Tipperary. The earliest records we have for the Benn family show them in 1719 in Limerick city. The information found in...
Research has established that by 1712 the Limerick Benns were a middleclass mercantile family living in the prosperous Limerick parish of St. John’s. It is unlikely that as Palatines, they would have been able to integrate this quickly into Irish society. This then begs the question – assuming that Mrs....
Eneclann’s own Fiona Fitzsimons met up recently with Lorna Moloney to discuss the annual Ancestral Connections Summer School in Genealogy. The Summer School is now in it’s 4th year, and has rapidly become a fixture in the genealogy calendar. In 2016 Ancestral Connections will be held 19th to 24th June....