Mary Raven lived the whole of her short life in East Markham, a village near Retford in Nottinghamshire. She was the third of eight children and the oldest surviving girl. Her sister Anne had died in infancy the year before Mary was born.
She married a local weaver when she was only fourteen: remember this was in the 17th Century when girls could marry at 12 and boys at 14.
Over the course of the next twenty years Mary had seven children, one boy and six girls. She died at the age of forty, when her youngest child was six years old. The transcript of the record I have seen gives no indication of the cause of death.
Mother of Elizabeth Cottam, daughter of Richard and Isabel Raven
Born on 14 and baptised on 18 December 1659 at East Markham, Nottinghamshire
Married William Cottam on 6 August 1674
Buried 8 June 1700