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We know that James Shirran was living in the parish of Strichen at the time of his marriage to Christian Black in 1805, but married in the parish of New Deer [GROS Marriage 1805 OPR 255 000 0020 0517z] - suggestng that they must have lived close to the boundary between the two parishes. When his son John was baptised in 1806 he was living at Craigculter a short distance south of New Pitsligo, which is indeed in the parish of Strichen, but adjacent to the parish of New Deer [GROS Baptism 1806 OPR 241 000 0020 0177z].
Later on the family moved to the Tyrie area, and a tombstone erected by their son George in memory of his parents says "James Shirran d 10 May 1840 aged 63", giving him a birth-date between 11th May 1776 and 10th May 1777. Mains of Whitehill seen from the main road, from Google Streetview: Sandbrigs is a few hundred yards over the horizon It is virtually certain, therefore, that the James who went on to marry Christian Black was the one who was christened on 13th July 1777 in the parish of New Deer [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0273Z], born to parents John Shirran and Nancy Ironside resident at Mains of Whitehill, a farmtoun in New Deer about a mile and a half sou'sou'west of Craigculter. There are baptismal records for several children born to what must be this couple, although the mother's name is variable. Sometimes she is Nancy and sometimes Ann, which is fine because Nancy is a pet-name for people called Ann, but she also turns up as Agnes and even as Elizabeth. It's almost certainly the same woman, since she always has the maiden surname Ironside and is always married to a John Shirran who lives at Whitehill, so possibly she was Ann Elizabeth Agnes or any combination thereof, and used whichever name she currently felt like. I have identified at least five children of this couple, all of whom were probably born a few weeks or months prior to their baptismal date. The Alexander Shirran who crops up three times as a witness must be some adult relative of John's living nearby - a father, brother, uncle or cousin. Isobel Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1776 // John Shiran in Mains of Whitehill had a Daughter brought forth by his wife Agnes Ironside baptised named Isobel Wittnesses Alexr Shiran Windyhead & James Ironside in Old Whatt." The day has been ommitted but the next entry is for 21st April and baptisms seem to have been taking place every few days [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0260Z]. Oldwhat is about two miles south-west of Mains of Whitehill. Windyheads seems to be about four miles nor'nor'west of New Pitsligo. James Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1777 // July 13th // John Shirran in Mains of Whitehill had a son brought forth by his wife Nancy Ironside bap-tized named James Shirran witnesses Alex'r Shirran and Robert Ironside both there." [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0273Z] Information from his tombstone gives him a date of birth no later than 10th May 1777 and his baptism probably wasn't more than a few months after his birth, so he was probably born in late April or early May 1777. He became the progenitor of a sprawling clan and is covered in detail on his own page. Barbara Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1779 // September 1st // John Shirron in Mains of Whitehill had a Child brought forth by his wife Agnes Ironside named Barbara Witnesses Alexr Michie & Jno Cruikshank there" [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0289Z]. Barbara married Andrew Reid on 29th March 1806 [OPR Marriages 225 000 0020 0518Z] in the parish of New Deer. She died after 10pm on 7th January 1866 in Oldwhat, New Deer [GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 online 225/00 0001]. She was described as the widow of Andrew Reid, farmer and the daughter of John Shirran, farmer and Elizabeth Ironside. No cause of death is given - it just says "No medical attendants" - but she was eighty-six which is probably sufficient explanation. Death was registered by a nephew, James Peterson, who was present. If the age is accurate she was born between 8th January 1779 and 7th January 1780. Combining this with her baptismal date we can say she was born between 8th January 1779 and 1st September 1779. Alexander Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1782 Jany 6th // John Sherron in Whitehill had a son by his wife Ann Ironside named Alexander witnesses John Syme in Overhill & John Ironside" [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0313Z]: Overhill is about a mile nor'nor'west of Mains of Whitehill. Alexander evidently moved to Muirstone along with his brother James, for what must be him turns up in the 1851 census, born in New Deer and now farming forty acres (and employing one labourer) at Muirstone, Tyrie [Census 1851 248 00 001 000 2 006Z]. He has a wife Ann a year older than himself and born in Pitsligo, and a son James born in Tyrie in 1815 or 1816. We know Alexander's brother James had a son George born in Strichen in 1814, so if the brothers moved to Muirstone together they must have moved circa 1815. The family appear in the 1841 census, living at Muirstone: Alexander Shirrane, farmer and Ann Shirrane, both aged fifty-five, and James Shirrane aged twenty-five [Census 1841 248/00 001/00 001]. Close by was another household full of Shirranes: George, a farmer, aged twenty-five; Agnes, twenty-five; Barbara, fifteen; Ann, fourteen; Christian, sixty, and in a separate hosuehold a Barbara Shirrane aged seventy-six. George is probably George the son of Alexander's brother James but I haven't worked out where the others fit in yet. What is probably Alexander's son James, born 1816, also turns up in the 1881 census [Census 1881 225 00 009 000 2 015Z] as James B Shirran, born in Tyrie, sixty-five-year-old crofter of ten acres at Bonnykelly in the parish of New Deer, about two miles west-nor'west of Mains of Whitehill. With him are his wife Barbara, born in Aberdeen, forty-nine, who must either have had the maiden name Davidson or a previous partner of that name, because with them are two children who are hers alone: William Davidson, sixteen, and Ann Davidson, thirteen. James and Barbara must have married less than thirteen years previously. They also have five mutual Shirran-surnamed children: James, ten; Barbara J, eight; Alexander K, seven; Thomas B, five; and Hugh L, three. All the children were born in New Deer. John Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1786 // January 31st // John Shirran farmer in Whitehill has a Son brought forth by his wife Agnes Ironside baptised named John — Witnesses Al: Shirran and Peter Mait-land in both in Whitehill." [OPR Baptism 225 000 0020 0339Z] Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs collected in Aberdeenshire by the Late Gavin Greig, published in 1925, contains a selection of the many traditional north-east Scottish Bothy Ballads collected by the schoolmaster and musician Gavin Greig (1856-1914) and the minister James Bruce Duncan (1848-1917). These include a very fine, bounding song about the driving of a new toll-road right across the Buchan area from Peterhead to Banff in 1808. The music for this song can be seen and heard at the Mudcat Café folk-tradition site. The Buchan Turnpike 'Twas in the year auchteen hun'er and aucht A road through Buchan was made straight, When mony a hielan' lad o' maught Cam' owre the Buchan border. 'Twixt Peterhead and Banff's auld toon It twines the knowes and hollows roon, Ye scarce can tell its ups frae doon It's levelled in sic order. The hielan' and the lowlan' chiels Cut down the knowes wi' spades and sheels, And bored the stanes wi' jumpin' dreels To get the road in order. There was some in tartan, some in blue, Wi' weskits o' a warlike hue, And werena they a strappin' crew To put the road in order? And mony a hup and mony a ban Got cartin' horse and lazy man, For fou and teem and aye they ran To push't a bittie forder. Chiel Chalmers he frae Strichan cam', Wi' ae black horse as bold's a ram, Nae ane could match him in the tram, He made a braw recorder. The Meerisons, the Wichts and Giels, Were swack and willin' workin' chiels, Sae weel's they banged the barrow steels To gar the road gae forder. The road's as smooth's a harrowed rig, Wi' stankies on ilk side fu' trig, And ilk bit burn has noo a brig, Where ance we had to ford 'er. The turnpike it will be a boon To a' the quintra roon and roon, And lat folk gae and come frae toon Wi' easedom and wi' order. On fit ye're owre it free to stray, But if a beast ye chance tae hae At ilka sax miles ye maun pay For gaun a bittie forder. The writer's name gin ye should spier, I'm Jamie Shirran frae New Deer, A name weel kent baith far and near, I dwell near the road's border. The authorship of the song is actually in dispute: several variant versions are recorded, not all of which include the verse about Jamie Shirran. It's been variously attributed to Jamie Shirran, John Shirran, Jamie Shirris and John Shirris. The records show a James Shirris who would have been fifty-four in 1808, and as his father's name was John he might have had a son John as well: but at the time of his christening in 1754 the Shirris family were living in Cullen, eleven miles west of Banff which itself is at the far nothern end of the road. In the mid 19th C there's a John Shirris who may have been from the same family and who was born at Cruden, six miles south of the road near Peterhead, and a JB Shirris in Lanark which is at the wrong end of Scotland altogether. There are also Shirrises listed at Kintore, about twenty-seven miles from the road, in the mid 18th C, in Old Machar in 1846, and in Aberdeen itself. The only New Deer or Strichen connection I've found for the Shirris family in vaguely the right era was an Anne Allan, maiden name Shirris, who had a child in New Deer in 1762. The closest the male Shirrises seem to have come to the road was at either end of it, where they would not be likely to see the road being driven "forrarder" by more than a few hundred yards because it was either heading wholly away from them or it had already pretty-much arrived, and even there they lived at least six miles from the road: so the Shirrises can probably be ruled out as authors. Greig and Duncan believed that the author's name was John Shirran. GR2 of rootschat.com says: Duncan, in a letter to Greig of 25 January 1908, [says]: "I think the song on the making of the road was made by John Shirran, who lived near John Park's place, in a small farm called Sandbrigs, on the other side of the old New Pitsligo road - afterwards occupied by Robert Park. He was dead before my time, but I have heard much about his force of character, his sometimes eccentric sayings and doings, and his rhymes. I remember two other men in that district that sang the song, besides my father, and the name they sang was John Shirran, and all understood it to be the work of the well-known rhymer. I have had some experience of how slippery these traditions are; but in this case the evidence is more satisfactory than usual, and there seems to be no opposing claimant. The Christian name might easily go wrong, and 'New Deer' no doubt refers to the parish, not the village." Greig, writing in the Aberdeen Buchan Association Magazine of January 1914, said "Between Brucklay Station and New Pitsligo [the Turnpike] runs for a bit along the borders of New Deer and Strichen parishes, in the former of which lived the redoubtable Johnnie Shirran ...... The author, John Shirran, lived at a small farm called Sandbrigs, a little to the south of the road, and within a mile of Whitehill, in the parish of New Deer." One of their sources, Mrs Gillespie, had seen John Shirran. He died at Sandbrigs "at an advanced age probably about the forties." Sandbrigs seen from the road, from Google Streetview: Mains of Whitehill is just over the horizon at the far left of the picture Sandbrigs is a smallish croft-house with accompanying barns, which sits next to a back-road which runs about three-quarters of a mile to the west of the main road, and roughly parallel to it. The house at Sandbrigs is immediately adjacent to Mains of Whitehill and about a third of a mile east-nor'east of it, so the John Shirran in question is almost certainly the John Shirran who was the father of James and husband of Nancy Ironside, who we know was living at Mains of Whitehill when James was christened in 1777: indeed Sandbrigs is so close to Mains of Whitehill that it may have been regarded as part of the larger farm, and it may have been Sandbrigs that John was living at all along. Or the fact that the baptismal records for his children baptised between 1776 and 1779 say that John was living "in Mains of Whitehill" and those for 1782 and 1786 just say "in Whitehill" may mark the point at which he moved out of the main farmtoun and into a croft which was merely in the Whitehill area. What seems to be John and Nancy's eldest child was christened in 1776, meaning John was probably born round about 1755; so even though I can find no note of his death, it would make sense that if he lived to a considerable age he would have died in the 1840s. Duncan and Grieg seem not to have been aware that John had a son called James who was living at Craigculter around the time the road was being built, little more than a mile nor'nor'east of Sandbrigs and just three hundred yards up a farm track which branches off the course of the turnpike road (now the A950), and who may have shared his father's poetic talents - although I suppose that the fact that they didn't know about him argues against his being the "name weel kent baith far and near" and in favour of his father John as author. But either way, the writer of the song must have been one or the other of them.
It is virtually certain, therefore, that the James who went on to marry Christian Black was the one who was christened on 13th July 1777 in the parish of New Deer [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0273Z], born to parents John Shirran and Nancy Ironside resident at Mains of Whitehill, a farmtoun in New Deer about a mile and a half sou'sou'west of Craigculter.
There are baptismal records for several children born to what must be this couple, although the mother's name is variable. Sometimes she is Nancy and sometimes Ann, which is fine because Nancy is a pet-name for people called Ann, but she also turns up as Agnes and even as Elizabeth. It's almost certainly the same woman, since she always has the maiden surname Ironside and is always married to a John Shirran who lives at Whitehill, so possibly she was Ann Elizabeth Agnes or any combination thereof, and used whichever name she currently felt like.
I have identified at least five children of this couple, all of whom were probably born a few weeks or months prior to their baptismal date. The Alexander Shirran who crops up three times as a witness must be some adult relative of John's living nearby - a father, brother, uncle or cousin.
Isobel Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1776 // John Shiran in Mains of Whitehill had a Daughter brought forth by his wife Agnes Ironside baptised named Isobel Wittnesses Alexr Shiran Windyhead & James Ironside in Old Whatt." The day has been ommitted but the next entry is for 21st April and baptisms seem to have been taking place every few days [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0260Z]. Oldwhat is about two miles south-west of Mains of Whitehill. Windyheads seems to be about four miles nor'nor'west of New Pitsligo.
James Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1777 // July 13th // John Shirran in Mains of Whitehill had a son brought forth by his wife Nancy Ironside bap-tized named James Shirran witnesses Alex'r Shirran and Robert Ironside both there." [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0273Z] Information from his tombstone gives him a date of birth no later than 10th May 1777 and his baptism probably wasn't more than a few months after his birth, so he was probably born in late April or early May 1777. He became the progenitor of a sprawling clan and is covered in detail on his own page.
Barbara Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1779 // September 1st // John Shirron in Mains of Whitehill had a Child brought forth by his wife Agnes Ironside named Barbara Witnesses Alexr Michie & Jno Cruikshank there" [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0289Z].
Barbara married Andrew Reid on 29th March 1806 [OPR Marriages 225 000 0020 0518Z] in the parish of New Deer. She died after 10pm on 7th January 1866 in Oldwhat, New Deer [GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 online 225/00 0001]. She was described as the widow of Andrew Reid, farmer and the daughter of John Shirran, farmer and Elizabeth Ironside. No cause of death is given - it just says "No medical attendants" - but she was eighty-six which is probably sufficient explanation. Death was registered by a nephew, James Peterson, who was present. If the age is accurate she was born between 8th January 1779 and 7th January 1780. Combining this with her baptismal date we can say she was born between 8th January 1779 and 1st September 1779.
Alexander Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1782 Jany 6th // John Sherron in Whitehill had a son by his wife Ann Ironside named Alexander witnesses John Syme in Overhill & John Ironside" [OPR Baptisms 225 000 0020 0313Z]: Overhill is about a mile nor'nor'west of Mains of Whitehill. Alexander evidently moved to Muirstone along with his brother James, for what must be him turns up in the 1851 census, born in New Deer and now farming forty acres (and employing one labourer) at Muirstone, Tyrie [Census 1851 248 00 001 000 2 006Z]. He has a wife Ann a year older than himself and born in Pitsligo, and a son James born in Tyrie in 1815 or 1816. We know Alexander's brother James had a son George born in Strichen in 1814, so if the brothers moved to Muirstone together they must have moved circa 1815.
The family appear in the 1841 census, living at Muirstone: Alexander Shirrane, farmer and Ann Shirrane, both aged fifty-five, and James Shirrane aged twenty-five [Census 1841 248/00 001/00 001]. Close by was another household full of Shirranes: George, a farmer, aged twenty-five; Agnes, twenty-five; Barbara, fifteen; Ann, fourteen; Christian, sixty, and in a separate hosuehold a Barbara Shirrane aged seventy-six. George is probably George the son of Alexander's brother James but I haven't worked out where the others fit in yet.
What is probably Alexander's son James, born 1816, also turns up in the 1881 census [Census 1881 225 00 009 000 2 015Z] as James B Shirran, born in Tyrie, sixty-five-year-old crofter of ten acres at Bonnykelly in the parish of New Deer, about two miles west-nor'west of Mains of Whitehill. With him are his wife Barbara, born in Aberdeen, forty-nine, who must either have had the maiden name Davidson or a previous partner of that name, because with them are two children who are hers alone: William Davidson, sixteen, and Ann Davidson, thirteen. James and Barbara must have married less than thirteen years previously. They also have five mutual Shirran-surnamed children: James, ten; Barbara J, eight; Alexander K, seven; Thomas B, five; and Hugh L, three. All the children were born in New Deer.
John Shirran's baptismal record says: "Anno 1786 // January 31st // John Shirran farmer in Whitehill has a Son brought forth by his wife Agnes Ironside baptised named John — Witnesses Al: Shirran and Peter Mait-land in both in Whitehill." [OPR Baptism 225 000 0020 0339Z]
Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs collected in Aberdeenshire by the Late Gavin Greig, published in 1925, contains a selection of the many traditional north-east Scottish Bothy Ballads collected by the schoolmaster and musician Gavin Greig (1856-1914) and the minister James Bruce Duncan (1848-1917). These include a very fine, bounding song about the driving of a new toll-road right across the Buchan area from Peterhead to Banff in 1808. The music for this song can be seen and heard at the Mudcat Café folk-tradition site.
The Buchan Turnpike
'Twas in the year auchteen hun'er and aucht A road through Buchan was made straight, When mony a hielan' lad o' maught Cam' owre the Buchan border.
'Twixt Peterhead and Banff's auld toon It twines the knowes and hollows roon, Ye scarce can tell its ups frae doon It's levelled in sic order.
The hielan' and the lowlan' chiels Cut down the knowes wi' spades and sheels, And bored the stanes wi' jumpin' dreels To get the road in order.
There was some in tartan, some in blue, Wi' weskits o' a warlike hue, And werena they a strappin' crew To put the road in order?
And mony a hup and mony a ban Got cartin' horse and lazy man, For fou and teem and aye they ran To push't a bittie forder.
Chiel Chalmers he frae Strichan cam', Wi' ae black horse as bold's a ram, Nae ane could match him in the tram, He made a braw recorder.
The Meerisons, the Wichts and Giels, Were swack and willin' workin' chiels, Sae weel's they banged the barrow steels To gar the road gae forder.
The road's as smooth's a harrowed rig, Wi' stankies on ilk side fu' trig, And ilk bit burn has noo a brig, Where ance we had to ford 'er.
The turnpike it will be a boon To a' the quintra roon and roon, And lat folk gae and come frae toon Wi' easedom and wi' order.
On fit ye're owre it free to stray, But if a beast ye chance tae hae At ilka sax miles ye maun pay For gaun a bittie forder.
The writer's name gin ye should spier, I'm Jamie Shirran frae New Deer, A name weel kent baith far and near, I dwell near the road's border.
The authorship of the song is actually in dispute: several variant versions are recorded, not all of which include the verse about Jamie Shirran. It's been variously attributed to Jamie Shirran, John Shirran, Jamie Shirris and John Shirris.
The records show a James Shirris who would have been fifty-four in 1808, and as his father's name was John he might have had a son John as well: but at the time of his christening in 1754 the Shirris family were living in Cullen, eleven miles west of Banff which itself is at the far nothern end of the road. In the mid 19th C there's a John Shirris who may have been from the same family and who was born at Cruden, six miles south of the road near Peterhead, and a JB Shirris in Lanark which is at the wrong end of Scotland altogether. There are also Shirrises listed at Kintore, about twenty-seven miles from the road, in the mid 18th C, in Old Machar in 1846, and in Aberdeen itself.
The only New Deer or Strichen connection I've found for the Shirris family in vaguely the right era was an Anne Allan, maiden name Shirris, who had a child in New Deer in 1762. The closest the male Shirrises seem to have come to the road was at either end of it, where they would not be likely to see the road being driven "forrarder" by more than a few hundred yards because it was either heading wholly away from them or it had already pretty-much arrived, and even there they lived at least six miles from the road: so the Shirrises can probably be ruled out as authors.
Greig and Duncan believed that the author's name was John Shirran. GR2 of rootschat.com says:
Duncan, in a letter to Greig of 25 January 1908, [says]: "I think the song on the making of the road was made by John Shirran, who lived near John Park's place, in a small farm called Sandbrigs, on the other side of the old New Pitsligo road - afterwards occupied by Robert Park. He was dead before my time, but I have heard much about his force of character, his sometimes eccentric sayings and doings, and his rhymes. I remember two other men in that district that sang the song, besides my father, and the name they sang was John Shirran, and all understood it to be the work of the well-known rhymer. I have had some experience of how slippery these traditions are; but in this case the evidence is more satisfactory than usual, and there seems to be no opposing claimant. The Christian name might easily go wrong, and 'New Deer' no doubt refers to the parish, not the village."
Greig, writing in the Aberdeen Buchan Association Magazine of January 1914, said "Between Brucklay Station and New Pitsligo [the Turnpike] runs for a bit along the borders of New Deer and Strichen parishes, in the former of which lived the redoubtable Johnnie Shirran ...... The author, John Shirran, lived at a small farm called Sandbrigs, a little to the south of the road, and within a mile of Whitehill, in the parish of New Deer."
One of their sources, Mrs Gillespie, had seen John Shirran. He died at Sandbrigs "at an advanced age probably about the forties."
Sandbrigs is a smallish croft-house with accompanying barns, which sits next to a back-road which runs about three-quarters of a mile to the west of the main road, and roughly parallel to it. The house at Sandbrigs is immediately adjacent to Mains of Whitehill and about a third of a mile east-nor'east of it, so the John Shirran in question is almost certainly the John Shirran who was the father of James and husband of Nancy Ironside, who we know was living at Mains of Whitehill when James was christened in 1777: indeed Sandbrigs is so close to Mains of Whitehill that it may have been regarded as part of the larger farm, and it may have been Sandbrigs that John was living at all along. Or the fact that the baptismal records for his children baptised between 1776 and 1779 say that John was living "in Mains of Whitehill" and those for 1782 and 1786 just say "in Whitehill" may mark the point at which he moved out of the main farmtoun and into a croft which was merely in the Whitehill area.
What seems to be John and Nancy's eldest child was christened in 1776, meaning John was probably born round about 1755; so even though I can find no note of his death, it would make sense that if he lived to a considerable age he would have died in the 1840s.
Duncan and Grieg seem not to have been aware that John had a son called James who was living at Craigculter around the time the road was being built, little more than a mile nor'nor'east of Sandbrigs and just three hundred yards up a farm track which branches off the course of the turnpike road (now the A950), and who may have shared his father's poetic talents - although I suppose that the fact that they didn't know about him argues against his being the "name weel kent baith far and near" and in favour of his father John as author. But either way, the writer of the song must have been one or the other of them.
