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.

Words of Wisdom

Words of Wisdom from my mother or another female ancestor.

I can't think of anything specific. There are general sayings, like "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" and Nanna O'Toole used to say to me "a stitch in time saves nine", although as a small child I used to think "Nine what?"

Eda Elizabeth Elecia O'Toole ni Shoobridge (1904-1984)

Mum always taught us to respect others' beliefs and try not to be judgemental, and she always openly questioned Dad's attitude to female preachers, which annoyed him but spoke volumes to me about a woman's right to speak and be heard, not just in a religious context, but in any context.

Aunty Dymphna, my Uncle Jack O'Toole's wife, always said, "Don't let anything stop you", and she lived that edict, going to university for the first time when she was in her 70s and topping her subjects. She was also a waste-not-want-not person and could look very glamorous on a shoe-string, copying designer clothes and making her own hats.

Dymphna O'Toole ni Helmrich (1911-2006)

Words have to be backed by actions, and Mum, Nanna and Aunty Dymphna did that, living according to their words. I feel very lucky and very proud to be part of their family.

Ancestral Trading Cards

Something a bit different today - a trading card to honour a female ancestor, in this case my great grandmother, Mary Marcella Hall.

 The  photo was taken in 1925 when Mary Marcella was 58 years old. She is smiling so happily because she is holding a new granddaughter.

BFF

Mum's best friend was Joanne. They lived in the same suburb of Sydney, grew up together and were Beach Bunnies together. They have always kept in touch, no matter what, and we grew up knowing her as Aunty Joanne. My older sister is named after her.

My paternal grandmother's best friend was her sister, Connie. Uncle Reg says you could not have two sisters who were closer. I don't have any photos of Connie, unfortunately. They were brought up separately, but lived close to each other, and supported each other through thick and thin.

Rene Davis, the lady next door at Curl Curl, was my maternal grandmother's best friend. She minded Mum while Nanna had surgery after Mum's birth. Rene moved away, up to Toukley, some years later, and Mum and Nanna went to stay with her. After that they lost touch, but Mum has reconnected with Rene's daughter, Joan in the last couple of years.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Most of my ancestors, female and male, immigrated to Australia, quite a lot as convicts, but others as free settlers, and a fair number as bounty immigrants.

Australia needed able-bodied men and women in order to increase the areas settled by Europeans and in order to build the society, so the British government came up with the Bounty scheme. From FamilySearch:

"Beginning in 1828, the Australian Government organized a program to encourage people to migrate to Australia, particularly to the State of New South Wales, which had been founded in 1788. “Assisted Immigrants” were immigrants whose passage was paid for or partially paid for by the Government as an incentive to settle in New South Wales. Another program which ran from 1835 to 1841 was the bounty reward system. “Bounty immigrants” were selected by colonists who then paid for their passage. When the immigrant arrived, the colonist would employ them and the colonist would then be reimbursed by the government for all or part of the cost of passage. The first immigrants to apply for this assisted immigration were the people from Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland. Later, people from other European countries began immigrating to Australia." 

There were age restrictions (no one deemed "too old" was accepted), health restrictions and initially a restriction on the number of children per family. Women aged between 15 and 30 were a priority but must be in the charge of a married couple, so one often finds single girls came over with families, whether they were related to the families or not. References were required for all applicants and there had to be a gaurantee of employment at the Australian end.

Lachlan McKay and his wife Anne Stewart, my great great great great grandparents, came out with their family under the Bounty Scheme. They came from the Isle of Coll. Many landholders in Scotland used the Bounty Scheme as a handy tool for clearances, but Coll was a different matter. Coll is a tiny place, just over 10 miles long, five miles across at its widest and half a mile across at its narrowest. It is fairly flat (there is only one notable hill), with sparse vegetation, and subject to wild weather. Its closest neighbour is the Isle of Mull.  In the 1830s its population was around 1500 plus animals, many of whom, people and livestock, were starving or close to starvation. The Duke of Argyll was petitioned to allow inhabitants to sign up for Bounty Immigration, and many took the opportunity. The first ship to sail was the Brilliant, leaving from Tobermory. On board were Anne, Lachlan and their children, Ann MacLean MacKay, John MacKay, George MacKay, Catherine MacKay, Isobel MacKay, Lachlan MacKay and Hugh MacKay. The Brilliant and its 313 passengers were tracked in the newspapers of the time and arrived in Sydney on 24 January 1838. The MacKay family went to Bathurst, NSW, then something of a wild outpost. Bathurst was a popular destination for the Scots, and quite a few Coll and Mull families ended up there.

extract from Bounty records held in NSW State Records. Anne is on the left, the children on the right. Lachlan appears on the preceding page.

Anne was a Gaelic speaker and couldn't read or write English (I don't know if she could read Gaelic). She never learnt to speak English, sticking to her own language until she died. After the family had been in Bathurst for a few years, Lachlan applied for a publican's license and proceeded to run the Green Man at Green Swamp outside Bathurst. Anne, a Scots Presbyterian, was furious about this. She must have wondered what they were all coming to.

I have one image of Anne, a poor quality scan (my fault), the photo was taken just before her husband's death in 1861. Immigration was not a happy process for her and I think it shows on her face.

Anne Stewart, c 1860, Bathurst NSW

Learning Curves

What schooling did my mother have? my grandmothers? my great grandmothers?

Mum went through Primary School and High School up to the Leaving Certificate, so at 15 she was out in the big wide world working.

Mum is at the far right, second row, with her hair in pigtails. She looks like my older sister in this photo

But later she went to Bible College, and since then Mum has always been learning. She learnt to speak and read Bengali when she was in Bangladesh and although she says she isn't much good at it, she can still read some and can still speak a little to the people at Nargi's, the local takeaway. Not bad for more than 40 years since she was there.

Then each time Mum took work she had to learn something new, go to training days. When Aid for the Children of Brazil started up Mum had to learn about not only the Australian legal requirements for overseas adoption and the correct forms and information from this end, but also about the Brazilian requirements and forms and information, how the Brazilian legal system works, and some Portuguese.

Now she is learning about computers - email, how to read this blog, online petitions, all sorts. And Mum always has something interesting to tell me that she has found out through all the things she does with her life - local government, street art in Sydney, the EDO (Environmental Defenders Office), the local museum. She has never stopped learning. Way to go, Mum.

I don't know much about my grandmothers' schooling. I know Nanna O'Toole went to the little school at Cox's River - one teacher, one room - and then was in school at Wentworth Falls for a while. It was unusual back then for girls to go beyond primary (it was unusual for boys in the area to go beyond primary), so I am not sure how far Nanna went. Nanna could read and write and was smart, she did the cryptic crossword every day, and I'm lucky to get one clue out, but I don't know that her schooling went far. I shall have to find out.

Tomorrow I go to see my Uncle Reg, so I can ask him about Nanna Ellem's schooling. She was no dunce either, but again, I just don't know. But I do know that Nanna was always able to turn her hand to a new trade when it was needed, just so long as you didn't ask her to sew or cook.

And as for my great grandmothers, Maud Elizabeth Parker (later Ellem) and Mary Ellen O'Dowd (later Davies), I'll ask Uncle Reg about them. I don't know about Mary Marcella Hall. Hannah Maria Amelia Pearce (later Shoobridge) went to school in Burragorang Valley, probably at the Cox's River School, but life was hard for her family and her mother, Elizabeth Pearce (ni Kerswell), had a child every two years or so and was not known for her devotion to housework, so Hannah left school early to look after her siblings, the house and her father, with help from her grandmother, Hannah Maria Kerswell (ni Rymes). My great grandmother often went out to work as well, to bring in extra cash for the family, and usually ended up keeping house for local women close to giving birth. Hannah often was present for the birth and acted as assistant to Mrs Longbottom, the local midwife. Hannah learnt a lot from Mrs Longbottom, the most respected midwife in the area, and when Hannah and her husband George William James Shoobridge and family moved up to Wentworth Falls about 1916, Hannah became a highly regarded midwife herself. So, like Mum, Hannah kept learning.

From what I know of the lives of my mother, grandmothers and great grandmothers, they all had to be resourceful and smart to keep their families together and fed and healthy and clothed. Although there may not be much formal schooling amongst them, they are and were smart women with formidable skills.

Parenting

I asked Mum what her mother was like as a parent. As a grandmother, Nanna was firm but loving, and we knew she didn't take nonsense.

As a parent, well, you judge if it's the same. Mum remembers being chased and flicked with a wet tea towel because she swore. Grandpop shut her out without tea because Mum wouldn't say thank you, so Nanna snuck her in and gave her dinner in her room.

I'd love Mum to expand this post or add a comment with more details. Mum?