Newbie - Johannes & Kennedy families

[poppyg]

Hi, not being doing this very long but find it so interesting, my sister and I are researching our fathers side of the family, who was Anglo Indian and came to UK in 1948 after his own father died. We have traced back to 1870's with the help of a distant cousing in Australia, but cannot get beyond that. On my fathers mothers side, they were Anglo Indian of French descent (if that is possible!) we think and have found one entry in the Madras area, but nothing else. Where do we go from there? We plan to visit the India office soon, so maybe we will be able to gain more info then.
On my husbands side, it was so easy to go back to about 1860 as they lived in the same house in Crook, Co. Durham until the early 1970's and found them on the UK census records. However, prior to that, all I have is that William and Mary Kennedy were born in Ireland. Full stop again, how would i progress from there? Any ideas would be helpful.|help|

[Bo Peep]

|wave|Hello Poppyg and welcome to Brit-Gen. I do hope you enjoy being a member of our community and get some help with your research.

[arthurk]

You can probably guess why I had a look at this thread, but my Kennedys came from elsewhere, and I don't know of anyone that would connect with yours.

I'm by no means an expert on India, but I've had occasion to check one or two things occasionally and have found a couple of useful online databases which it would probably be worth checking before you visit the library. One is connected with the India Office collections at the British Library - the starting page is http://indiafamily.bl.uk . The other is the Families in British India Society (FIBIS) - can't remember the URL, but a search engine should find it. This is a family history society for those with interests in India, and you can search some of their indexes from the site.

Irish research can be a bit tricky, especially if you don't have an exact birthplace. If you post the details you know on the General Irish board (or the specific county if you know it), maybe someone can take it from there. You mention William and Mary Kennedy - what sources have you used so far (censuses, death certificates, anything else?), and have you worked out an approximate birthdate? Also important for Ireland - were they Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland, or something else like Methodist or Presbyterian?

Good luck,
Arthur

[poppyg]

Thanks for that Arthur, will post on the Irish section.