Genealogy Chat

Many of you have been helping me trace my G Aunt Mary Ann Grayson who went to New Zealand in Oct 1911. One of the theories is that she might have got free passage as she was a single female domestic servant. On the 1901 census she was working for a William H Tarman/Jarman and his family in Fulford, York, England. He was a Building Surveyor from Durham. I have searched the Passanger records for The Tongariro, the ship she went to New Zealand on but there was no-one of that name on the same ship. How might I find out who she was working for before she left for NZ? That way I can see if she left with them. Thanks for any help Dawn

It could be tricky. Many servants remained with the employing family for many years, but it seems it was traditional for the contract to be for one year, set up at annual hiring fairs in the local market town. There is still a mop and runaway mop in Stratford-upon-Avon (the first for employer and employee to arrange the contract, and the second a couple of weeks later if either party were unhappy with the arrangement) - googling suggests that it remained a hiring fair until the 1st World War. Could you instead trace from the NZ end to see which families went there around the same time from the same place on the same ship?

The mop fairs (including the Runaway mop, which was the very last fair of the year) are still called that in Banbury and the Warwickshire villages. Its lovely the tradition has remained.

Well, you could check street directories for 1911/12 to see if the Jarman family were still in England. But personally, I think that if a family took their servants with them, the servants would be listed with the family, usually, for instance a lady's maid or a nany, or a valet. I doubt if any family would take an 'ordinary' domestic servant with them and pay her fare - no matter how good a servant she was, they could get another parlourmaid or whatever in NZ. OC