Death Of A Sibling

I discovered an old obituary dated September 17th, 1905 on genealogybank.com, a website Bill & I use for research. It appears Uncle Coll had a sister named Catherine who died on September 14th, 1905 at the age of 20 years old.

Catherine was listed in the obit as being the daughter of Collum & the late Catherine McCaffery. She was laid out at 118 Dawson Street (Manayunk), home of Robert Pester. In later Census Records, Collum & Catherine's older daughter Anna was listed as being married to Robert Pester.

Catherine McCaffery's funeral mass was held at St John the Baptist Church and interment was in St Patrick's Cemetery in Norristown.

I suppose you can probably guess that I will be taking a trip up to Norristown to check for McCaffery graves because if she was buried up there in St Patrick's Cemetery then I can guess so were her parents.

My question is, "Why a cemetery up in Norristown"?

At this point in time, I now know that Collum McCaffery immigrated from Ireland in 1875 and was married to a woman named Catherine. So far I have been able to count four children associated with Collum & Catherine McCaffery. The children are Anna, Catherine, John & Collum. Anna married Robert Pester. Catherine died in 1905. Collum married Anna Marie Gallagher and had two children Collum (Buddy) & Mary.

Then there was John McCaffery. Was this John really Collum's son or was he a nephew? If he was a nephew then he was grandmom's father. The long lost father whom I have not been able to successfully trace.

And it is totally strange that in the 1910 Census Records, all four children remain listed in Collum McCaffery's household including the younger daughter, Catherine (Katie) who supposely died in 1905. Though the ery spelling of the name is less common than the rey spelling, there are many McCafferys listed in the Census Records from 1880-1930. The name Collum is very unique.

These McCafferys continue to elude and fascinate me. St Patrick's, here I come.