Two, four, six, eight!

Remember that "motivating" chant?

Two, four, six, eight!
Who do we appreciate?

I guess it's goal is to remind someone that they are well, appreciated. Along the same lines is today's official "holiday": Ancestor Appreciation Day.

I haven't been able to determine who set today's date as Ancestor Appreciation Day, or even how long it has been on the calendar. But since I'm always looking for excuses to encourage others to dig into their family trees, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to celebrate and mention it to you.

Just what should we make of Ancestor Appreciation Day? Well, according to the National Genealogical Society, working on a family tree is the 2nd most popular hobby in the U.S. (It comes in right behind gardening, which reminds me, when was the last time I put the genealogy aside and did some weeding?)

One website that mentioned Ancestor Appreciation Day suggested taking some online genealogy classes such as Beginning Genealogy at Genealogy.com. For those new to family history, here's my suggestion: start at the beginning with yourself and go back from there. There's no telling what you might learn when you begin with your own history and go from there to your parents, then to your grandparents, your great-grandparents, etc.

We'll just need to change the chant:

Two, four, eight, sixteen...

Growing pains for Boston

As I mentioned in my last post, the Tierney family moved to Quincy around 1895. They were one of many, many Irish families who exited the North End when the influx of European Jewish settlers began taking over the area. South Boston soon replaced the North End as the area of the majority of Irish settlement. Quincy and other areas outlying Boston also gained many Irish residents.

This map, circa 1880 (click on it to view it up close), shows the date that various areas were annexed by Boston. It is a good overview of the city during this pivotal time of growth, when Patrick & Catherine Tierney were in the midst of raising their children in the crowded and difficult world of the Irish North End of Boston.

Home sweet homes

Whether or not an Irish Catholic like Patrick Tierney should have ever set foot in Boston, he went on to make it his home for the rest of his relatively short but very full life. However, for some reason (or several reasons) he and his family did not stay put in one residence. His children's civil birth records and many city directories indicate the places in which the family moved. Here is a timeline showing the Tierney family's known addresses in Boston beginning in 1877 (although Patrick was residing in Boston earlier):

• 1877 - Rear 448 Hanover
• 1879 - Rear 442 Hanover
• 1881 - 78 Cross
• 1886-1890 - 468 Commercial
• 1891 - 66 Mercer

About 1895 the Tierney family moved to Quincy along with many other Irish immigrant families who were leaving the North End for the outskirts of Boston. Here are family's addresses in Quincy (Patrick passed away in 1900):

• 1897-1898 - 101 Quincy Avenue
• 1903-1908 - 312 Quincy Avenue
• 1909 - 52 Gay Street
• 1912-1964 - 32 Gay Street (the house pictured above)

Here is a photo of the house at 32 Gay Street taken in 2003: