The Jones Family History - Elizabeth and Andrew Kennedy

Provided by the Sargent family.

William Jones Family Tree


Andrew Kennedy, born in 1837 according to the 1901 census, immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1851 (or 1857 - the handwriting is difficult to interpret), and married Elizabeth Jane Jones (b. 1842 - 1901 census, or 1841 - gravestone and death certificate), daughter of William and Rebecca. They owned a farm almost next door to that of William and Rebecca Jones. The 1881 Census shows Andrew was head of household on this farm, Concession V, Lot 23 (175 acres), with wife Elizabeth and children as follows:

Mary - 15 years old
Jane - 13
Rowat - 12
Maud - 10
Gordon - 9
William - 8
Andrew - 6
Kate - 4
Martha - infant (died in 1883).

In the 1901 Census, those still on the family farm were:

Kennedy, Andrew, b. 1837 in Ireland, immigrated in 1851 to Canada
Kennedy, Elizabeth, b. 1842 in Ontario
and their children:
Rowat, age 32 "farmer's son"
Gordon, age 29 (learned from Daun that she and her sister Lynn Kennedy are Gord's grandchildren), "school teacher"
Donald, age 19, "farmer's son"
Mary, age 35
Kate (Nina Katherine), age 23, "school teacher"
Andrew, age 26 "railway clerk"

From the Census data, we can see that there were two one-room schools located near to the Kennedy farm. Each had one teacher, so we speculate that Gordon taught at one, while Kate was the teacher at the other.

There were two older sisters who did not appear in the 1901 Census: Jane ( or Jen), and Maud (who was listed in 1881); both had presumably married and moved away by then. Jane's married name was "Kellock". Maud's was "Hope".

We know from a will made by Andrew Kennedy that his son Rowat inherited the farm, with the proviso that he provide for his mother there during her life. He sold the farm in 1919, and we believe he moved to Toronto with his wife Jessie (Lynn has indicated there were no children).

Last summer, we found the graves of Andrew and Elizabeth Jane Kennedy at Brown's Cemetery just west of Winchester. Andrew died in 1916, and Elizabeth Jane in 1928.

John's grandmother Kate married Simeon Whidden Fisher in 1906. S.W.'s father, the Rev. Simeon Whidden Fisher (a Presbyterian minister who was then at Flamborough Presb. Church at Christie's Corners, near Hamilton, Ont.) married Simeon and Kate at the farmhouse where Kate grew up, and which we had the good fortune to visit last summer -- it is now owned by the Fawcett family, and is still a (dairy) farm of 175 acres.

Simeon and Kate moved shortly thereafter to Ladner, B.C., where S.W. established a pharmacy, and where both worked for many years. Their two daughters, Mary Jean (b. 1907) and Kathleen Provost (b. 1908) grew up in Ladner. and attended U.B.C. and U. of Washington respectively, Jean graduating in honours math, and Kay in music. Jean went on to complete her M.A. and Ph.D. in math at U.B.C. and the University of Toronto. While at U of T she met John's Dad, Hartley Sargent, a mining engineer from Victoria, B.C. They married in 1937, and subsequently spent time in Boston (where John's Dad completed his Ph.D. in Mining Engineering) and Vancouver before moving to Victoria, where John's Dad made his career in the provincial Dept of Mines.

John and his brother David were born in 1943 and 1945 respectively. They grew up and went to school in Victoria, as I did also. John and I attended UVIC for one year each; John then completed his undergrad work in economics at McGill, while I did honours French at UBC. We both studied in Boston, Mass, John at MIT and me at Harvard, from 1964-66. We married in August 1966, and moved to Kingston Ont in 1968. From 1968-71, we both taught at Queen's. In 1971, we moved to Ottawa when John joined the federal civil service as an economist in the Dept of Finance, and where I eventually became a French-English contract translator while our children were growing up, then worked for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board as an administrator for 10 years.

We have two children: Laurie (b. 1971) and Ted (b. 1973). Laurie is a lawyer at the Dept of Justice (human rights), and Ted is an associate professor at the University of Toronto (electrical engineering, with specialization in lasers and nanotechnology).

Janice and John Sargent