Mary Christmas? You have to be kidding

I was going to have this written and posted last night, but baking gingerbread TARDIS and Daleks got in the way (the best laid plans of mice and Megans...)

I don't think it turned out too badly. Photo c Megan Hitchens 2013

There has been a lot on the web about Christmas posts, most about reminiscences of Christmas pasts. You know, what you did as a child, favourite traditions, that sort of thing. Thomas MacEntee has been running a good one, and encouraging people to put their posts on Pintrest. But most of my childhood Christmases were crap, so it has been difficult to want to take part, let alone managing it (sorry, Thomas).

So instead of writing about a family Christmas I have decided to write a little post about the Christmas family.

One of my third great grandmothers was Sarah Christmas from Bassingborne in Cambridgeshire in 1823. Sarah arrived in Australia 26 March 1849 aboard the Steadfast, along with her husband William Green and children William, Susan and Rebecca. The family settled in Grafton in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales.

I always wondered where my father's side of the family got their love of bad puns and groan-inducing jokes. And then I started looking back through Sarah's family in Cambridgeshire.

If you had the surname Christmas, there would be some names you might want to NOT name your children – Holly, Ivy, Rosemary and Wenceslas spring to mind, but surely, SURELY, the one name you would want to avoid would be Mary. But no, not the Christmases of Cambridgeshire. I have found records going back to the late 1600s (christening records for the parishes of Landbeach, Oakington, Histon, Steeple Morden, Litlington, Guilden Morden and Abington Piggots) and in every generation there is at least one poor girl named Mary Christmas. It seems to have begun back in the early 1700s when two Christmas brothers thought it was a sterling idea. Robert and Susanna (ni Kidman) named their first born Mary in 1731, while brother Thomas and wife Anne had already named their first daughter Mary in 1716.

There were Marys who married into the family, and I hope they thought long and hard before making the leap, but at least their parents could say, “it wasn't my fault”.

Telling my father and his brother about the Christmases has resulted in roars of laughter. They love it, it's a great joke. I just hope Robert and Thomas, and everyone else who took that path, didn't think when they named their daughters. But I have this deep suspicion that they were laughing too.

HAPPY Christmas to everyone.

St Peter and St Paul Christmas Tree Festival 2013, Steeple Morden. From Steeple Morden Village Website

Mini Profile

Today's challenge is to write a mini-profile (500 words or less - I scraped in at 499). I chose my great great great great grandmother, Mary Mayall.

Mary Mayall was born in Saddleworth, Yorkshire around 1776, possibly the daughter of Thomas Mayall and Mary Andrew. Her family were weavers and spinners, heavily impacted by the industrial revolution. During Mary's lifetime, spinning and weaving went from cottage industries to factory production. Mary married James Slater of Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire, on 26 September, 1797 in Manchester Cathedral (the priests had a fee scam going so it was cheaper to marry at the Cathedral). James was a weaver and engineer. Mary and James had ten children:

Sarah, born 1797, who died as a baby

Sarah, 1798-c1862

Mary, 1800-1882

Ann, 1801-?

Esther, 1803-1876

Miles, 1805-?

Daniel, 1807-1810

Moses 1809-1893

Miriam, 1810-1840

Maria, 1812-?

In 1812 James was arrested for stealing a weaver's sack and in 1814 was transported to Australia, leaving Mary with eight children to raise. Fortunately, James' father was quite well off, so Mary and the children had a house to live in, but it must have been tough at times. Moses later on lied about his age, shaving off six years on his Bounty papers. In the 1841 Census Mary was living with or next door to her children Sarah, Moses, and Maria, with their spouses and children, so she was far from alone.

Moses left for Australia shortly after the Census was taken, arriving in Australia aboard the Champion on 12 February, 1842, along with Mary's grandson John Hall and granddaughter Ann ni Hall with her husband, James Walker. Then in 1844, more of the Slater clan made for Australia's shores. Mary's daughter Mary, with her husband David Hall and eight remaining children made the journey on the Briton, arriving in Sydney on 26 June 1844. There is a Mary Slater on board the Briton as a paying passenger, but I have doubts about her being my Mary.

Mary's end is difficult to discern. Some other family members believe that she died in Australia in 1847. There is a death record for a Mary Slater of Balmain in that year, and the age is about right, but this Mary was exhumed from Sydney Burial Ground when Central Station was to be built and reinterred in Bunnerong by her daughter Sarah, along with Sarah's husband John Bradford, who also died in 1847. My problem with this is that Mary Mayall's daughter, Sarah married James Green and was still in Lancashire in 1861. Also I can find no record of her coming to Australia.

In 1854, Mary and James' daughter Esther immigrated to Australia with her children. Her husband, John Hilton, had died a few years earlier, so Esther understandably came to be with her family. On Esther's immigration records it states that her father, James is living in Balmain and that her mother, Mary is deceased. Did Esther leave because her mother had also died, or did she leave because of news that her mother had died? When did Mary die and where was she buried? Her story remains incomplete until these questions can be answered.