Christmas Helen

Photograph courtesy of Times Past North Wales Photo Archive



You can keep Father Christmas. I have an Uncle Christmas. For real!

It gets better. He’s actually called Christmas Helen. Or was.

Last year, I did some digging around in my family history. I didn’t unearth any great surprises. My family was as my family is. No connections to royalty or to famous folk emerged. I uncovered no heroes, though doubtless there were a few. But I did make one delightful discovery. One that put a huge smile on my face and tickled me to my toes. I have a great-great-uncle called Christmas Helen.

Well, to be truthful, his surname was more usually spelled Hellen or Hellin or Hellyn. No-one fussed too much in those days when lots of people couldn’t write. And I presume he was blessed with his unusual first name because he entered the world on December 25^th. Or thereabouts.

I know little else of him. The name of the Welsh village in which he was born; the name of the village in which he died. The name of the girl he married and the year in which they tied the knot. The names of his three sons. And I’m guessing he spoke with a Welsh accent!

But the lack of details doesn’t matter. I’m inordinately fond of Great-Great-Uncle Christmas Helen. His name is enough.

Comments

[Lauren]

I love it. Also, I found an ancestor named Marmaduke Moore. And then I died laughing.

[Emily Atkins]

Wow I dint realise you ad an anchestor called christmas!! thats an amazin name ha!!x

[And A Cousin Hellin, Too&helli]

[...] She stumbled across the name, Christmas Hellin, and googled him.  That brought her to the blog post I wrote about him two years ago.  An e-mail later and, hey presto, I have a new [...]