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Jessie Tawse (or Taws) was born at the farm or hamlet of Shandscross a mile north-east of Turriff, probably between 4th April and 24th June 1829, since she was listed as twenty-six when her son William was born on 1st September 1855, fifty-one in the census of 3rd April 1881 and eighty-eight when she died on 24th June 1917. Her parents were Adam Tawse, Master Carpenter, and Elspet Tawse née Wisely: more information on her parents and siblings can be found here. [GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; Census 1881 223/00 005/00 005; GROS Statutory Deaths 1917 227/0B 0021]
She married Alexander Shirran at 10th March 1852 at Shandscross - this last detail appears on the registry entries for the births of their sons William and James, although not in the original parish record, which simply places them in the parish of Turriff. All the entries for their children's births confirm the date of 1852 except the ones for their twin sons (born in 1869), which wrongly say 1853. [O.P.R. Marriages 1852 247/00 0030 0566 TURRIFF; GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; GROS Statutory Births 1866 173/00 0063; GROS Statutory Births 1870 249/0B 0032; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0013; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0014] The entry for their marriage in the parish records of Turriff says the following:
The couple had nine children. Their eldest boy Adam was born at Shandscross on 24th February 1853, at which time his father was working at Cotburn three miles north-east of Shandscross. The next son, William, was born on 1st September 1855, and on the registry entry for his birth it states that he is his mother's second child and that the couple have two boys, both living (presumably including William himself, since Alexander was twenty-three when he married Jessie, and a bit young to have had any previous officially-recognised and recorded relationships before her) - so we know Adam was their first child. [GROS OPR Births 1853 247/00 0030 0256 Turriff; GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081]
The census for spring 1861 shows Jessie, listed as "Ploughman's wife" and head of household, living in a cottage next door to her parents at Shandscross with four children - Adam, William and two others. A daughter named Jessie had evidently been born circa October 1857, and a son James in 1860 or 1861, although neither child's birth is in the records. Her husband Alexander meanwhile was working as a ploughman at a farm called Cliftbog a few miles to the south, on the far side of Turriff. [Census 1861 247/00 004/00 011; Census 1861 247/00 008/00 007]
A fourth son, Robert, was born on 27th June 1863 at Shandscross (and registered under the variant spelling Shirron). The two youngest children, Jessie and James, both died of diphtheria at Shandscross in March 1866, in each case after an illness of about one week, Jessie on the 13th (at 5:50am, her father being present) and James in the 22nd (at 1pm, father not present, probably because he was at work); so James fell ill a few days after his sister's death, and then he too died. [GROS Statutory Births 1863 247/00 0076; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0012; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0013]
The fifth son and sixth child, George, was born on 27th August 1866, five months after the deaths of Jessie and James. The registry entry for his birth says he was born at Bogside in the parish of Auchterless, which would suggest Bogside (now Sunnyside) near Cushnie, half a mile south-west of Turriff, and quite close to Logie Newton where the fasmily would be in 1871. [GROS Statutory Births 1866 173/00 0063; Census 1871 249/0B 002/00 006]
When he joined the army, however, George would claim to have been born in the parish of Monquhitter, which would suggest he was born at Bogside of Greeness (or even the tiny Bogside Croft which is six hundred yards east of Mill of Muirtack, although it is too small to appear on any but the finest-scale map). [Short Service attestation 1883] But Bogside bear Cushnie is more likely. George lied about his age when he joined the army, so he may have lied about his birthplace too, or genuinely not known it.
Twin boys, Alexander Cowie Shirran and Charles Forbes Shirran, were born at Smiston, Auchterless on 21st February 1869: Alexander was five hours older than his twin. [GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0013; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0014] Smiston was probably the cottage/croft marked on old maps as Smithton: it no longer exists, but it was two miles south-south-west of Kirkton of Auchterless and just over a mile north-west of Badenscoth, roughly in the centre of a triangle bounded by Woodtown, Netherthird and Crofts of Netherthird (then called Crofts of Oldwood). [Thanks to Anne Burgess of Geograph for tracking Smiston down]
Their eighth son and ninth child was another boy called James, re-using the name of his dead brother. This second James was born at the village of Logie Newton, three miles south-west of Kirkton of Auchterless, on 30th May 1870. [GROS Statutory Births 1870 249/0B 0032]
The census of 7th April 1861 shows Jessie living at Shandscross with her parents and children while her husband, a ploughman, is working a few miles south-west of Turriff at Cliftbog. By August 1866 she was at Bogside where her son George was born and Alexander is described as a farm servant on his son'a birth certificate. By 2nd April 1871 the couple are living together with their children at Logie Newton and Alexander is again described as a farm servant, and in the censuses of 3rd April 1881 and 5th April 1891 they are living on and farming a twelve-acre croft at Greeness, in the vicinity of Ewebrae Farm, Ewebrae Croft and Easter Ewebrae, but not Ewebrae Croft itself. [Census 1861 247/00 004/00 011; Census 1861 247/00 008/00 007; Census 1871 249/0B 002/00 006; Census 1881 223/00 005/00 005; Census 1891 223/00 005/00 009]
Her husband Alexander died at Hill of Greeness - presumably at the family croft - at 10:30am on 11th January 1899, of chronic nephritis. His son William was present when he died, and registered the death. He was survived by his wife. [GROS Statutory Deaths 1899 223/00 0003]
In the census of 31st March 1901, what is presumably this Jessie appears under the name Jessie Shinnen, widow, living in a two-room house at 82 Main Street, New Deer with her seventy-year-old brother-in-law William Cumming, a cattleman and farm labourer. His wife Isabella or Elizabeth, Jessie's younger sister, was still alive - she didn't die until 1930 - but is not present: perhaps she was away visiting. [Census 1901 225/00 005/00 022; GROS Statutory Marriages 1860 192/00 0017]
In the census of 2nd April 1911, Jessie is living alone aged eighty in a property with only one windowed room, the head of her own solo household, at 128 High Street, New Pitsligo. [Census 1911 227/0B 001/00 011]
Jessie died aged eighty-eight at 10:50pm on 24th June 1917 in New Pitsligo, of heart-failure. She died eleven days after the marriage of her granddaughter, George's daughter Florence Caroline Jessie, who went just by "Jessie" and must have seemed to some extent to be a substitute for her grandmother's own lost daughter. At the time of her death she was probably living either with or near her son William, who was present when she died, just as he had been present at his father's deathbed. The address where she died looks like "32, High Street", or perhaps 52 or 82. At that time, and at the time of his death, William's address was 42 High Street, New Pitsligo but that doesn't prove his mother was living with him: the family owned or rented several houses on New Pitsligo High Street.[GROS Statutory Deaths 1917 227/0B 0021; GROS Statutory Marriages 1917 692/02 0176; GROS Statutory Deaths 1925 227/0B 0001]
