Talk:Kennedy family

First Generation
I imagine that P. J. Kennedy and his sisters are the first generation of the Kennedys because they were the firsts Kennedys to born in America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.59.203.111 (talk) 11:39, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * First generation of American Kennedys, yes, but not first overall generation of Kennedys. Snuggums (talk / edits) 15:43, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Coat of Arms
I would like to suggest that the coat of arms be removed from this article for the following reasons: First, the Kennedy family is essentially an American family of primarily Irish and English descent. The United States government does not grant coats of arms and therefore U.S. citizens do not have coats of arms unless granted by a foreign government which is rare. The government's of England and Ireland and Scotland do not grant coats of arms to U.S. citizens who are not residents of those countries and in any case do not grant coats of arms to entire families. Therefore this is not the Kennedy family coat of arms since there is no such thing as a family coat of arms and therefore it is inappropriate to display on an article about the Kennedy family. The only Wikipedia article this coat of arms should be displayed in is the article written about the individual that this coat of arms has been granted to. Also no coat of arms should ever be displayed in an article of any kind unless it bears a caption stating the name of the individual that such coat of arms has been granted to and no such caption is included. The only occasion when a coat of arm should be displayed is if the individual the article is written about has been granted a coat of arms. There is no way to be more clear. This coat of arms does NOT belong in this article. Would the people who have access to editing this article please remove it. You can easily verify what I have said by looking up the correct usage of coats of arms in any book on the topic. I presume there is a Wikipedia article about the correct usage of a coat of arms and who has the right to display one and under what circumstances they should be displayed if one wants to verify what I have written here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.190.53.6 (talk) 18:11, 21 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I have removed the coat of arms for the reason I cited above. Please do no put it back without first verifying the above.  Again, there is no such thing as a family coat of arms.  No government has ever granted a coat of arms to a family.  They are only granted to individuals.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.190.53.6 (talk) 18:30, 21 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The following is quoted from the website of the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland:  "There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a ‘family coat of arms’.  A grant of arms made to an individual extends to his or her descendants of the name, not to a family as such."  What this means is that the arms described at the bottom of the article as having been granted to the family of Patrick Kennedy could not in fact have been granted to the entire family but only to those male line descendants bearing the Kennedy name strictly speaking and their daughters until they marry or otherwise change their names.  So Maria Shriver, as an example, cannot claim this as her coat of arms.  This said, individual claimants still need to register themselves with the office of the chief herald if they want to make public use of the coat of arms.  For the above reason I am removing the section on the coat of arms.  If someone wants to redo the section to reflect correct usage of the coat of arms of Patrick Kennedy explaining who in the Kennedy family can use them legally then by all means put the section back.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.190.53.6 (talk) 19:03, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Ó Cinnéide
Is there really any proof of their descent from the Ó Cinnéide clan, or is it just based on last name? Based on this article, the founder of the American Kennedys was from working class, which slightly contradicts with the claimed royal origins. There should be serious research into this issue, otherwise such claims should be removed, in my opinion. Somewhat reminds of the Spencer family's genealogical claims, which have been debunked. For now, there appears to be no evidence of that the political Kennedy family had any connection to Irish gentry at least, to have a possibility of Irish royal descent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OlKob (talk • contribs) 14:42, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

That "streak in public office" thing
Recent edits caused me to look at that section - it's badly written and verges into trivia. How's this (as a starting point at least)?
 * There was a member of the Kennedy family in public office nearly continuously from 1946, when John F. Kennedy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, until early 2011, when Patrick J. Kennedy left the House. The only exception in that time was the period between John F. Kennedy's resignation from the Senate on December 22, 1960 and his assumption of the office of President on January 20, 1961.

- Special-T (talk) 15:29, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a bad idea. We can use that in the prose instead of what the article currently has. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 16:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Titles section
Can someone add US Attorney General to the titles section? I would put it at #3. It is missing (RFK). Thanks! 205.221.125.163 (talk) 14:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Should "Titles" even be there? It makes sense in an article about a person, but a bunch of titles held by a large group of people, piled into an indiscriminate list, is kind of nonsense. - Special-T (talk) 14:13, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It's a valid parameter for Template:Infobox family and should not be removed simply because someone doesn't like it. To challenge the parameter, discuss at Template talk:Infobox family. Sundayclose (talk) 18:12, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's fine, but I didn't remove it because I didn't like it, I removed it because it's kind of nonsensical to have an undifferentiated pile of titles that belong to members of a family, with no indication of who had which title. - Special-T (talk) 18:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, not to belabor this issue, but I don't see much difference between removing something because you think it's nonsensical and removing it because you don't like it. But I'll accept your comment at face value and thank you for agreeing to leave the parameter in the infobox. Sundayclose (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed - I certainly didn't look up the infobox page. Is there any way that this can make more sense, though? I mean, anyone clicking on the list, seeing that some Kennedy was "Papal Countess of the Holy Roman Church", would, of course, think - Really? Which one? - Special-T (talk) 19:00, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Most of the titles are described in the article, which is as it should be. Technically, a title could be removed if it isn't sourced in the article. But I prefer to leave it if it's sourced in the person's article. If it's not even mentioned in the article, it could be removed. But I prefer adding a "citation needed" tag and wait to see what happens. The papal countess was Rose. I added that to the article with a citation. Sundayclose (talk) 19:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Since Kathleen Kennedy was Marchioness of Hartington shouldn't that title also be in the section? or at least "Marchioness" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unfriendnow (talk • contribs) 18:25, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Updating "continued public service" section
Should we add that Caroline Kennedy is now Ambassador to Australia and Vicki Kennedy (second wife of Ted) is also now Ambassador to Austria? Unfriendnow (talk) 21:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)