06 / Catherine’s household · Bridgeport · 1 June 1900
Before it was
a destination,
it was her home.
Catherine McPadden Kelly.
A life already taking shape in America.
Four years before James crossed the Atlantic, his older sister’s family was recorded at 11 Warren Court. Behind the address were five names—and lives a census could only begin to describe.
Meet the household11 Warren Court · the 1900 census
Five names.
A world between them.
Choose a person. Keep the relationships beside the names.
Catherine McPadden Kelly
More than a name beside her husband’s.
Written as “Cathrine Kelly” on the census, Catherine is recorded as Irish-born, married for twelve years, and the mother of seven children, three living. Here we meet her through her own household—not only through her brother’s later journey.
This is James McPadden’s older sister. Catherine McNiff, whom he later married, belongs to a different household.
Names and relationships from the census—not a floor plan, seating arrangement or portrait of the family.
Not everyone appears by name
Seven children born.
Three living.
The census records four losses without naming those children. Their names and stories remain to be recovered. They belong to this family’s history, even where the page leaves silence.
The count does not tell us when or where they died, or how the family experienced their loss.
From atmosphere to evidence
The page beneath
the story.
The census names Catherine, her husband and their three sons. It records his work as a coachman and their twelve years of marriage.
One field needs care: the recorded 1890 immigration year conflicts with Catherine’s documented 1888 marriage. It cannot establish when she arrived. The return does not describe their dwelling or daily routines.
Next · October 1904
An address on this page would cross an ocean.
Her brother would name it as his destination.
The record names a family contact—not a proved dockside reunion or a promise of lodging.