Title: Hearn of Colliers & Kennedy of Cat’s Cove (Conception Harbour) families

Hello! I’m researching the Hearn family of Colliers, on the south shore of Conception Bay, and I’m hoping to connect with anyone descended from, or researching, this family or the Kennedys they married.

The documented line runs like this. A James Hearn held a fishing plantation at Colliers, recorded in the Conception Bay Plantations Book in 1798. By the mid-1800s the Colliers Hearns centre on a James Hearn and his wife Bridget, whose sons were raising families at Colliers by the 1860s: Michael, Richard, Patrick, James, John and Thomas Hearn, all marrying and baptising their children in the Sts. Peter & Paul parish (Harbour Main) between about 1859 and 1883. Richard Hearn’s own will names him “son of James Hearn,” which anchors the group. Michael Hearn married Mary Kennedy, and their son Richard Bernard Hearn (b. 1874) later moved to Philadelphia, where part of the family remains today.

Two brick walls sit just behind this family, both in the years before the parish register begins in 1857, and I’d be grateful for any local knowledge on either:

1) Bridget, the wife of the elder James Hearn (mother of Michael, Richard, Patrick and the others). I have not been able to find her maiden name, or where and when the couple married.
2)The Kennedys of Cat’s Cove (Conception Harbour). Two of the Hearn brothers married Kennedy women — Michael Hearn married Mary Kennedy, and James Hearn married Bridget Kennedy — and the baptism sponsors point to the two women being sisters. I’m trying to identify their parents. A Martin Kennedy who died at Conception Harbour in 1858, aged about 52, is my leading candidate for their father, but I’d welcome anything that confirms or corrects that.

I’d especially love to hear from anyone who: descends from, or is researching, the Colliers Hearns or the Cat’s Cove / Conception Harbour Kennedys; has family records, a family Bible, or handed-down memory naming any of these people; or is a Hearn descendant who has done, or is open to, DNA testing.

I’ve reconstructed a good deal of the Colliers Hearn family from the parish registers and from DNA, and I’m very happy to share whatever I have in return. Thank you!