Family Photo Friday – Maria Kezia Roberts

M y 2 x great grandmother Maria Kezia ROBERTS was born in Windsor, New South Wales on 10 January 1839.

Maria Kezia was the grand daughter of William ROBERTS, a convict sent to Australia on the Scarborough in the First Fleet. William married Kezia BROWN, a convict who was transported to Australia on the Neptune, better known as the Hell Ship of the Death Fleet.

James BLACKMAN, that handsome, spoilt and flamboyant young gentleman, was her maternal grandfather. James and his wife Elizabeth FARLEY arrived in Australia as free settlers in 1801.

Maria married my maternal 2 x great grandfather Jonathan EVERINGHAM at Windsor in 1859. Their eldest child was my great grandfather Henry John EVERINGHAM .

The ROBERTS and EVERINGHAM families crossed paths from the very first days of the young colony. Maria’s grandfather William Roberts and Jonathan’s grandfather Matthew James EVERINGHAM were both transported to Australia on the Scarborough. Jonathan’s grandmother Elizabeth Everingham nee RYMES, and Kezia BROWN were both transported to Australia on the Neptune.

Maria and Jonathan helped lead the Everingham family ‘migration’ northwards from the Hawkesbury region, where both the Everingham and Roberts families had settled in the first years of the colony.

They settled on the farming lands of the mid-north coast region of the state. The couple farmed at Moorland, south of Port Macquarie. Later generations moved further north to the far north coast of New South Wales, settling in the area around Lismore..

The couple had twelve children, all of whom outlived their parents.

Following her death in 1920 , Maria Kezia Everingham was buried in the Holey Creek (Moorland Cemetery)/