<p> Two members of the Kennedy political dynasty, including a grand-niece of John F Kennedy, are now presumed dead after they went missing during a canoe trip, the family said Saturday.</p>.<p>It looks to be the latest chapter of heartbreak for a family that has suffered tragedy after tragedy, in the form of untimely deaths, since President Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.</p>.<p>This time it involves a grand-niece of the late president, Maeve Kennedy McKean, 40, and her eight-year-old son Gideon.</p>.<p>They disappeared Thursday while canoeing in the South River in Maryland, near the vast Chesapeake Bay, Governor Larry Hogan said Friday.</p>.<p>The Coast Guard, police and firefighters immediately launched a search but did not find the missing Kennedys.</p>.<p>"It has been more than 24 hours, and the chances they have survived are impossibly small.</p>.<p>It is clear that Maeve and Gideon have passed away," husband David McKean wrote on Facebook early Saturday.</p>.<p>The rescue operation has now shifted to one of finding the bodies, said Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the mother and grandmother of the missing two.</p>.<p>Kennedy Townsend, 68, is a former Maryland lieutenant governor, and the daughter of Robert F Kennedy, the onetime US attorney general in his brother's administration.</p>.<p>RFK was himself slain in 1968 as he campaigned for president five years after his brother's death.</p>.<p>In 1999 John F Kennedy Jr and his wife and sister-in-law died when the small plane he was piloting crashed off the Massachusetts coast.</p>.<p>Saoirse Kennedy Hill, a granddaughter of RFK, died of what was ruled an accidental drug overdose last year at age 22.</p>.<p>David Kennedy, a son of Robert, died at age 28 of a cocaine overdose at a Florida hotel in 1984.</p>.<p>Another son of RFK, Michael, died in a skiing accident in Colorado in 1997.</p>
<p> Two members of the Kennedy political dynasty, including a grand-niece of John F Kennedy, are now presumed dead after they went missing during a canoe trip, the family said Saturday.</p>.<p>It looks to be the latest chapter of heartbreak for a family that has suffered tragedy after tragedy, in the form of untimely deaths, since President Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.</p>.<p>This time it involves a grand-niece of the late president, Maeve Kennedy McKean, 40, and her eight-year-old son Gideon.</p>.<p>They disappeared Thursday while canoeing in the South River in Maryland, near the vast Chesapeake Bay, Governor Larry Hogan said Friday.</p>.<p>The Coast Guard, police and firefighters immediately launched a search but did not find the missing Kennedys.</p>.<p>"It has been more than 24 hours, and the chances they have survived are impossibly small.</p>.<p>It is clear that Maeve and Gideon have passed away," husband David McKean wrote on Facebook early Saturday.</p>.<p>The rescue operation has now shifted to one of finding the bodies, said Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the mother and grandmother of the missing two.</p>.<p>Kennedy Townsend, 68, is a former Maryland lieutenant governor, and the daughter of Robert F Kennedy, the onetime US attorney general in his brother's administration.</p>.<p>RFK was himself slain in 1968 as he campaigned for president five years after his brother's death.</p>.<p>In 1999 John F Kennedy Jr and his wife and sister-in-law died when the small plane he was piloting crashed off the Massachusetts coast.</p>.<p>Saoirse Kennedy Hill, a granddaughter of RFK, died of what was ruled an accidental drug overdose last year at age 22.</p>.<p>David Kennedy, a son of Robert, died at age 28 of a cocaine overdose at a Florida hotel in 1984.</p>.<p>Another son of RFK, Michael, died in a skiing accident in Colorado in 1997.</p>