Duffy Family History

This site has been pretty quiet for the last couple of years. I created it as a place to document my family history research, and I am not entirely active researching my family lately.

So there hasn't been a comment on this site for 2.5 years. And I've probably created 5 posts in that entire time.

That being said, you won't believe how busy this site is. It has thousands of user accounts, and is adding new users at a rate of about 5 per day. And it has thousands of comments in the approval queue, with several dozen a day being posted.

Searching around the web, I found this:

http://www.squidoo.com/visitnwefoundlandandlabrador#module13322587

Abraham's Cove is a tiny community located on the Port au Port Peninsula on the west coast of the island about 24 km from Stephenville. It was settled by a French Canadian family, possibly displaced Acadians from Nova Scotia, in the middle of the 1800's. These first settlers depended on the sea and the land for their livelihood by fishing and farming. Another French family from St. Pierre soon joined the Duffy familyA and by 1891, there were fifteen people living here.

It's surprising to me that things change in a few short years, and perhaps it shouldn't be.

Revisiting my DNA research, scientists now classify my haplotype as I1 instead of I1a. A minor change to be sure, but I'm still surprised that they are learning new things every year about the history of our ancestors 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.

Other web sites say the Duffy clan is descended from Colla da Crich.

For instance, this web site claims the following names are descended from him.

This history of the Duffy name from Ancestry.com message boards. Wikipedia dates this story to about 4th century A.D.

Not sure if this would contain any new Duffy information, but there are two books published by Kirk Butt entitled "Early Settlers of Bay St. George", in two volumes. I still don't have a definitive timeline of when the various families settled in that area (including Benoit, LeJeune, Hynes, etc.)

You can see the books here and here. And if you do order them, let me know if there's anything about Duffy in there.

Here's a picture I found of Abraham's Cove, from the Newfoundland Government.

Here is the caption to the photo:

"Abraham's Cove was first settled in the second half of the Nineteenth Century by a family known as the Duffys, who were French Canadians, probably Acadians and who depended on their small farms and the fishery for their livelihood."

Started searching the LDS family tree website. I know the LDS (Mormon Church) is the recognized authority on ancestry (no, it's not ancestry.com but they're close). But I've never really searched their web site til now.

Found, one John M. Duffy, born in Newfoundland in Sep 1876. Moved to Massachusetts, living as a boarder and working as a barber.

From http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#eventPlace=Newfoun...

Name: John M Duffy
Titles:

I recently purchased a book from Amazon.com called "Duffy Names in History". Looks interesting, and perhaps worth the US$30 it would cost.

From Seary's Family Names of Newfoundland book:

Family tradition: Robert ("French Bob") Barker, came from Le Havre, France and settled in Coachman's Cove in the late 18th or early 19th century. His descendants are at Windsor.