14 / The crossing was only the beginning
A destination.
Then a life.
A ticket brought James toward Bridgeport.
A marriage joined his story to Catherine’s.
The records ahead introduce five children.
- 1904A sister’s addressThe arrival record
- 1912James & CatherineThe wedding report
- 1930Seven people togetherA household census
637 Main Street · Bridgeport · 1930
Five children.
Five lives to follow.
James and Catherine McNiff appear with all five children on one census page. The household is recorded in a rented home. Each name is the beginning of another story—not simply a link on the way to us.
The parentsJames McPadden & Catherine McNiffThe five siblings below are their children.
Eldest daughter
Catherine McPadden
This is their daughter Catherine—not her mother, Catherine McNiff, or her aunt, Catherine Kelly. She appears with her parents in 1930. She is not listed in their 1940 household; that absence does not establish what happened to her.
The page gives us names. Not everything.
A household is recorded.
A home is more.
A census can place people together. It cannot tell us what made them laugh, what worried them or how they shared the work of a home.
The next story follows changing addresses, work and the children growing up. The first married years and complete individual biographies still have gaps. We will keep those gaps visible.
Living descendants remain private unless they choose what to share. A place in the family tree is not permission to publish someone’s life.
Across the Atlantic, the story continues too
One branch.
Not the whole tree.
Bridgeport is one destination in a larger McPadden story. The people who stayed in Leitrim have lives of their own to tell. Other journeys—and returns—remain to be explored. A shared surname is a question to investigate, not proof of a shared ancestor.
Explore Leitrim, the living center