The Data
The main project database contains 51744 Kennedys and their spouses as of September 17th, 2008; 16122 Families (couples), of which 11186 are Root Families ie have no parents and 5274 of those have descendants, this is the number of branches of the overall Kennedy family tree. Searches in the main database should be requested by email to the project.
Published data
News update 17.9.08 The Guild archive search bug I previously reported was fixed on 26th August 2008. It is no longer necessary to set the Surname field to 'All', 'Kennedy' will also work!
The main database contains much private information which prevents me providing online access. However I have now uploaded to the Guild of One-Name Studies archive the vast bulk of civil marriage index transcriptions in a searchable format. Some minor restrictions to the search are in place to ease the load on the server and prevent mass downloads. Because of the standardised format of the archive, it is not possible to cross-link it to the main database. Note that the text at the Guild archive is also standardised; although it says 'In some circumstances, the data holder may have further information about the data displayed' in fact I have at least the full date and location if not a lot more for approximately half the marriages on view. It is not my wish that the marriage index should be your first port of call; that should be to make contact with me as that way you will obtain access to the full study.
Marriages 1855-1875 were indexed by the LDS and the summaries - full names of parties and exact date but only parish location - can be seen at various web sites. Marriages post 1932 can only be viewed at New Register House in Edinburgh and Park Circus in Glasgow - I currently hold full details of about 600 in this category. The current uploaded index covers the years 1876-1930 and contains 4701 marriage records.
Note that the search form uses exact matching for the Spouse's forename, if you want to find a spouse who may have had a middle name you must add the wild-card * character at the end of their forename. This is in contrast to the Forename field where a wild card character at the end is assumed. Registration district must be as listed at GRO Scotland. The help text on the search page infers that words like 'Glasgow' or 'Edinburgh' are valid district names but they are not (I have submitted this as a cosmetic bug report 17.9.08). Please let me know of any other problems.
The Kennedy marriage archive can be accessed here.The top registration district in the archive is Blythswood, one of the Glasgow districts, which has almost double the Kennedy marriages of its next rival, Paisley. The top rural district is Lochs on southern Lewis.
I will continue to monitor both usage and feedback and will add further data to this archive if there is positive feedback.