Where Did The Time Go

With this post, I have officially passed my 300th entry to this blog. And I have to ask myself, where did the time go? I am amazed that I actually had this much to say or that many pictures to post.

For me each day is a testament to "Living History". Everyday we make history as well as discover it.

This year I have made some strong progress with my grandmother's maternal side of the family, the Bolands. In recent posts I wrote about the ships they entered the Port of Philadelphia on as well as their arrival dates. It also was discovered that there was another Boland who already lived in the East Falls Section of Philadelphia whom was their official contact. His name was Martin Boland and he is most likely the brother of John Boland, grandmom's grandfather.

Mary Boland Cafferty was the first of the family of John and Ella Boland to come to Philadelphia. She came with her husband Bernard and rented a house on the same block in East Falls as Martin Boland, Calumet Street. A most interesting fact about Bernard and Mary was they left their newborn son Michael back in Ireland in the care of her parents and did not see him for more than two years until her parents came to Philadelphia.

Agnes Bridget Boland, grandmom's mother was the second member of the family to come over from Ireland. She traveled with Bernard's younger sister.

The third member of the family that came over was Katherine Boland followed by the rest of the Boland family, John, Ella, John, Ellen and baby Michael.

It is at this time that I want to mention that I may not have gotten this far with the Bolands if it were not for the clues Jean Nicholson gave me during a conversation I had with her a year ago. Jean's grandmother was Katherine Boland Malervy, the aunt who took grandmom in after grandmom's mother then grandmother died when she was a small child.
Sadly, Jean passed away last December and like her parents is buried in Westminster Cemetery.

The family I am currently researching at this time is grandmom's paternal family, the McCafferys. Though I have been able to find a lot of information about Coll McCaffery, grandmom's cousin and grandpop's brother-in-law. I am still trying to piece together the information about grandmom's father, John McCaffery. So far it appears he was born in Philadelphia and not in Ireland in 1884. From what I have gathered so far is he may have had at least three brothers and his father may have come to Philadelphia from Ireland in 1875. A most interesting fact about John McCaffery that has come up is his father is from Ireland but his mother may have been from Scotland. If this is the case, our dear grandmother may not have been 100% Irish as we always thought and with that red hair
and green eyes, she could very well have Scot in her. It has already been established that grandmom did not have her mother's dark hair and blue eyes and it is most likely she looks like her father.

Hopefully, I will get to the bottom of the mysterious McCaffery family and have an update soon.