#ThomasKenney January 8

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For January 2024 several of us will be participating in the “30-Day 6 Degrees of Separation Coach4aday Challenge”-today we learn about my great grandfather THOMAS KENNEY and Olympic Volleyball Coach Doug Beal.

Embarking on this challenge has aroused my interest in creating a history book of my own family. My paternal great-grandfather was Thomas Kenney who was born in 1842. From research I have been able to obtain from other family members he lived most of his adult life in Jersey City NJ.

To the best of my knowledge, he and his wife had 11 children including my grandfather John Joseph Kenney.

At one time he was licensed to own a junk shop and called 50 Walnut Street home. In November of 1877 he transferred his city issued #35 junk shop license to William Hallisey who lived at 167 Laidlaw Ave. The location of 50 Walnut Street was razed to become St. John’s Apartments/Condos (Operation Breakthrough) in the 1960’s. Today those condos are located at the intersection of St. Paul and Huron in Jersey City.

Rules of the Challenge

Many people have heard of this concept. The notion of six degrees of separation grew out of work conducted by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. It then became a 1993 film named appropriately “Six Degrees of Separation.”

Organizing a six degrees of separation challenge involves creating a chain of people, each connected to the next by a mutual acquaintance. The goal is to demonstrate that any two people in the world can be connected through a chain of six or fewer personal connections.

How to Participate

Here is how to participate:

1. Identify the First and Last Person in the Chain.
2. Go thru the connections with a brief explanation.
3. Do this daily for 30 Days posting on social media with the hashtag #Coach4adayChallenge

Day 8-Thomas Kenney to Doug Beal

Six Degrees of Separation-Thomas Kenney-John Joseph Kenney-Mary Kenney-James Longo-Pat Longo-Doug Beal

1. Thomas Kenney my paternal great grandfather was born in 1842 in Ireland and married Mary Kenney who was born in Ireland in 1843 they had 11 children including John Joseph Kenney (10th child) who was born on January 7,1879 in Jersey City NJ.
2. John Joseph Kenney (1/7/1879-1/5/1962) married Bridget Masterson (6/27/1879-2/13/1936) and had 4 children including Thomas Kenney Eugene V Kenney F.D Kenney (my dad) and Mary Theresa Kenney (12-27-1912-11-22-1953)
3. Mary Theresa Kenney married James Joseph Longo on 9-30-1950.
4. James Joseph Longo who died on 8-21-1987 is the father of Patricia “Pat” Longo
5. Pat Longo (my first cousin) is one of the winningest HS volleyball coaches in the State of NJ-having coached the Bayonne HS Men and Women’s teams to over 1,000 victories. She also has won over 500 games as a HS Basketball Coach. She started the women’s softball program at St. Peters. Pat Longo was gifted an autographed ball from Doug Beal
6. Doug Beal is the first volleyball coach to win a Gold Medal for the USA in 1984.

Here is a podcast of my cousin and record setting high school coach Pat Longo.