Jane (Curwen) Christian (1558 - 1593)

Born 1558 in Clifton, Cumberland, England

Ancestors

Wife of William (McCrystyn) Christian — married about 1576 in Lezayre, Isle of Man [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 1593 at about age 35 in Ronaldsway, Derbyhaven, Isle of Man

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Biography

Jane Curwen was born 1558 in Clifton, Cumberland, England. She was the Daughter of Sir Henry Curwen MP and Mary (Fairfax) Curwen

She married William McCrystyn (later Christian), son of William McCrystyn in about 1576 at Kirk Lezayre, Isle of Man, and they had three children, ^[1]

• Jane (Christian) Samsbury.
• Mary (Christian) Quayle.
• Deemster Ewan.

There is also an unconfirmed unsourced child, Katherine (Christian) Burton.

She died in about 1593 in the Isle of Man. ^[1]

Conflicting Accounts of which sister married William

Secondary sources have disagreed on the subject of which daughter of Sir Henry Curwen was married to William. Earlier versions of this profile had him married to Jane, but there is a Boyds Inhabitants of London record of her being married in about 1575 to Christopher Musgrave son of Sir Thomas Musgrave and living in London. ^[2].

Richard Glanville-Brown, presumably relying on this, decided William had been married to Jane's sister Mabel, before she married Sir William Fairfax.^[1] However this would have involved her marrying Sir William in 1581, although William Christian did not die until 1593. ^[1]

Moreover there is other evidence that Christopher Musgrave was not married to Jane Curwen but to her sister Joan Curwen^[3]

Taking these issues into account, it seems, pending further documentation coming to light, that the Boyds Inhabitants of London record may have been transcribed wrongly, that Richard Glanville-Brown may have been mistaken in relying on it, and that, as a result, it is most likely that William was married to Jane Curwen.

Note on the Secondary Sources

The principal Christian family archives are in three places:

• The Christian Annals in the Manx Museum, a detailed compilation by the widow of the last owner of Milntown.
• A genealogy of the Christians deposited in the College of Arms, London by John Christian Curwen in 1798.
• A legalized pedigree of the Christian family, No 182, in the Genealogical Office of Dublin Castle, pages 271-6. Reference M.D.Christians of Milntown, access no 8725.

While all of these are publicly accessible to visitors, they are not digitised, and we need therefore to rely on the published records of the researchers who have visited them.

These secondary sources are:

• Richard Glanville-Brown who has exhaustively researched the genealogy and published his findings on a CD in 2005. This has been relied upon by several subsequent historians, and this profile uses the references in “The Peerage” as it has not been possible to locate a copy.
• “The Yesterdays behind the Doors” by Susan Hicks Beach (nee Christian) published by Liverpool University Press in 1956. This is a summary of two of her antecedent families, the Christians and the Gregories.
• “Milntown” by Derek Winterbottom published by Alondra Books in 2017. Milntown had been the Christians' home.

It is also fair to say that the period covering William and Jane's life is early and there is not a great deal in any public or family records covering this period.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Richard Glanville-Brown online Ontario Canada as cited in http://www.thepeerage.com/p15346.htm#i153451
2. ↑ Christopher Musgrave in Boyds Inhabitants of London in https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBOR%2FBIL%2FSOG130%2F0063&parentid=GBPRS%2FBIL%2F00555943 Subscription required (Accessed January 12 2021)
3. ↑ Richardson, Douglas: Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd edn. (2011), Vol. 1, p. 212, BLADEN 14.