Jacobites ?

[Rick]

Does anyone have an explanation as to why one branch of my tree contains many female children named after Maria Clementina Sobieska ? For those who don't know, she was the Polish wife of the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, and the mother of Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The families are all English protestants as far back as I can tell. The first one appears in about 1755 and they carry on well into the mid 1800s. The male children don't seem to be named after the Stuart men.

It seems unlikely they would really want a catholic king restored to the throne, but was there a sense of injustice about the interruption of the Stuart succession that transcended religion ? I realise there was a certain amount of romanticism associated with Bonnie Prince Charlie's story, but why the obsession with his mother ?

[Chrissie Smiff]

Perhaps she was a bit of an icon of the day? A bit like so many children being named Kate these days

[grumpy]

Rick,
Maria was particularly popular in Scotland, being married to a Stuart, so if any of your ancestors were Scottish it could be a reason for their naming their female children

after her, and it seems to me that if a name is popular within a family group other members of the group have a tendency to use a similar name for their children - just a

thought.

[Rick]

Perhaps she was a bit of an icon of the day? A bit like so many children being named Kate these days

That's the sort of thing I was wondering, but extensive googling hasn't provided much evidence of that.

[Rick]

Rick,
Maria was particularly popular in Scotland, being married to a Stuart, so if any of your ancestors were Scottish it could be a reason for their naming their female children

after her, and it seems to me that if a name is popular within a family group other members of the group have a tendency to use a similar name for their children - just a

thought.

The first in the family that I know of was named Sobieski Theyer - she was born about 1755. Her father was English and his father was from Kent (and pre-dates the ousting of the Stuart dynasty). While I haven't identified his father's father, the Theyers seem to go back at least to around 1600 in southern England. Sobieski's mother was from Devon, as were her grandparents and again there's no evidence of Scottish ancestry there.

Interestingly Sobieski is the male form of the family name and Sobieska is the female. Maria Clementina Sobieska's grandfather was the King of Poland. I take the point that all the subsequent family members might be named for Sobieski Theyer - most are named Sobieski Clementina <surname>