Week 40: Longevity #52Ancestorsin52weeks

As far as I am aware my longest living recent ancestor was my paternal grandmother, Christina Barr Walker (1868-1961). She lived to be 92. I must have met her, but I have no memories of her, as I was only three years old when she died and I was living in Newcastle upon Tyne at that time. She died from pneumonia after falling and breaking a leg. Recently I learned that in her final years, she had been suffering from dementia. She had survived her husband, John McAra, by fifteen years and during her lifetime she had lost four children and two adult sons.

My grandmother, Christina Barr Walker, as a young woman.

The ninth out of ten children, Christina was brought up on a farm, her dad starting off in life as an agricultural labourer, then becoming a blacksmith. She was given the middle name 'Barr' (a 'family' name that I was given) but which my research has shown me was never a family name! Christina Barr seems to have been the name of the milkmaid who lived next door to my great grandparents. Had she assisted in the birth of my grandmother I wonder?? She would have been 16 at the time.

1871 census for Christina Barr, Shotts Parish

In any case Christina Barr's legacy lived on in the middle names of four of my female cousins as well as myself, our parents believing it was a family name and naming us in the traditional Scottish way - first daughter gets the maternal grandmother and great grandmother's maiden names second daughter gets the paternal grandmother and great grandmother's maiden names. When I mentioned this to one of my cousins, she told me she used to get teased by our Uncle George that she'd been called after a milkmaid! Maybe there is some truth in that story!

Christina in her later years

She seems to have been a caring, hardworking woman. Not only did she take care of her own children, she took in Jeannie Walker, the illegitimate daughter of one of her sisters as well. She grew up with my dad and my dad was very fond of her. Her descendants still own the cottage my dad was born in.

It would be good to think I may have inherited some of her genes for a long life. I am the youngest of all of her many grandchildren, so with advances in medicine and health care, who knows?? My cousin, Christina Barr McAra is still going at 92!

Post script: the longest living person in any one of the trees I research, is Martin's Aunt Frances, who lived to be 100! Check out Week 29 of my blog if you are interested.

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