In the book "The History of Clinton County, Iowa" from 1879 (The History of Clinton County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns &c., Biographical Sketches of Citizens. United States: Western Historical Company, 1879.) my 2xgreat-grandfather John Kennedy (1826-1913) said that he married Honora Collins (1830-1888) on 10 November 1854, but he named no place. It also says that he moved to Wisconsin in 1849 and in 1854 moved to Clinton Co.
Hanora Wallace (1853-1911), Honora's second daughter, from her first marriage to John Wallace was most likely born near Beloit, Wisconsin in 1853. That puts both John Kennedy and Honora in Wisconsin at the same time. That was where I have spent the last several years looking without success for a marriage record for them.
Then one day I was looking through the records from Old St. Mary's Catholic Church, the first Catholic church in Chicago. I had determined that John Kennedy's sister Mary (1837-1899) had married her first husband, Stephen Lawler (1831-1866), in Chicago and had found a baptism record for a son of theirs in 1856. I was looking for a record of their marriage when I came across this entry from 1854:
Imagine my surprise! I quickly checked that it was the right date and sure enough I had accidently stumbled across a record of John and Honora's marriage. I have no idea what they were doing in Chicago. That was not where I had expected to find them.
John's sister's obituary says that she came to the US as a child and settled in Chicago. John made no mention of Chicago in his county biography. More research is required into this Kennedy family's history in Chicago. Also I need more information on the movements of Honora, especially after the assumed death of her first husband in 1853 or 1854.
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