The Kennedy Family Tree
The Kennedys are a family descending from the marriage of the Irish-Americans Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and prominent in American politics and government.
With the election of President John F. Kennedy, he and his two then surviving brothers all held prominent positions in the Federal government, and received intensive publicity, often emphasizing their youth (relative to comparably influential politicians), glamour, education and their collective future in politics.
The family has undergone (then, before, and since) a series of deaths and other reverses that could not be fully remedied by wealth, sometimes called “the Kennedy curse”; it has included the assassinations of brothers John and Robert, three aircraft crashes, a case of mental retardation leading to a prefrontal lobotomy, and at least three sets of allegations against individual family members and their relatives by marriage, including a murder conviction and a controversial fatal single-car crash.
The family patriarch was Patrick J. Kennedy (1858–1929), a first generation American who married Mary Augusta Hickey.
In 1914, their son,
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
(1888–1969) married Rose Fitzgerald (1890–1995), the daughter of Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald.
He died when taking part in an Operation Aphrodite wartime test as pilot of a modified B-24 Liberator drone bomber experiment which accidentally exploded and crashed in Suffolk England. For this act, he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.
He was a U.S. representative, a U.S. senator and the 35th President of the United States. He was assassinated during a motorcade in Dallas, TX.
Likely dyslexic and considered to be slightly brain-damaged from birth, Rose Marie Kennedy (her christening name) was rendered incapable of intelligible speech or caring for herself by a lobotomy, a popular neurosurgical technique of the time, requested by her father, Joe Sr., that was intended to cure her increasing mood swings and make her more manageable.
Known as Kick, she married a Protestant, the son and heir to the Duke of Devonshire, over her mother’s strenuous religious objections.
She is best known as the founder of the Special Olympics, an organization she began in honor of her sister Rosemary.
He was U.S. attorney general in his brother’s administration, later served as senator from New York, and was assassinated while running for president in June 1968.
She married Stephen Edward Smith (1927–1990) and had two sons and adopted two daughters.
Known as “Teddy” or “Ted”, he has served as a senator from Massachusetts since 1962.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. (1960-1999) - a lawyer and publisher of George magazine, who was killed in a plane crash on July 16, 1999.
Christopher Kennedy Lawford - professional actor.
Sydney Maleia Lawford married Peter McKevley, has four children.
Victoria Francis Lawford married Robert Pender, has three children.
Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend - former lieutenant governor of Maryland, unsuccessful candidate for Maryland governor in 2002.
Divorced from Sheila Rauch, two sons; currently married to Anne Elizabeth (”Beth”) Kelly, no children.
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. - environmentalist and political commentator, attorney and law professor at Pace University School of Law.
Michael LeMoyne Kennedy - died in a skiing accident on December 31, 1997.
Mary Kerry Kennedy - ex-wife of Andrew Cuomo, who is the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, has three children.
Christopher George Kennedy - president of Merchandise Mart commercial properties based in Chicago.
