4th Great Grandmother
8th Generation
Born - 26 April 1809 - Burntisland, Fife Scotland
Died - 9 July 1854 - Aberdour, Fife Scotland
Janet was baptised Jenny, however all other records have her as Janet. Until doing genealogy I would never have guessed Jenny was Janet. However documentation confirms this as correct. Janet was the second born to Hugh Paxton, Farmer, and his wife Margaret Given. She was born in Burntisland, Fife in 1809.
Burntisland is home to the second oldest highland games in the world starting in 1652. The Games take place on the third Monday of July, the start of the Fife/Glasgow fair fortnight, and a local market and summer fairground takes place on the same day. These games are still going on today, I have fond memories going to the Burntisland games as a little girl – I didn’t know then my family have been going for around 200 years!
In 1828 Janet married John Leitch in Beath. Beath was a neighouring village and where John was born. After they married they moved to Aberdour, another village in Fife.
Janet had an older brother John. John married Margaret Dick when he was 33 years old and she was only 20. They had 9 children together. In the 1841 census they were living next door to his, by then, elderly parents. They had also moved to Aberdour. John was a farmer, like his own is father and they worked together on Little Couston Farm.
Little Couston, lies on the A921 – it is still there! However it is in ruin. The site is up for sale and some of the buildings are still there. I have put the latest picture I could find online below.
John worked his own land and was a farmer until he died in 1866 at only 59. Making his wife a widow at only 46.
Monziehall, the farm where John worked, lived and died was owned by Hugh Paxton, father to John, Janet and Margaret.
Margaret, Janet’s younger sister married Ebeneezer Horn, he was a farmer at Droverhall Farm in Crossgates/Dalgetty – she was a farmers wife just like her mother. Ebeneezer owned 110 Acres and employed 3 Men & 3 Women in the 1871 census. They also had a servant and their 23 year old daughter didn’t work. They were a wealthy family.
When Janet was first married to John he was an agricultural labourer and worked on the same farms as other members of her family. However by 1851 John had become a carrier and they moved to High Street Aberdour (still the same village as Janet’s family). This is the last census I have as Janet died at only 45 years old in 1854. She left 9 children behind. Janet is buried in the Wester Cemetery (Old Churchyard), Aberdour.
Death record below
Farming was a huge part of Janet’s life – the Scottish Agricultural Revolution was well underway. Farming back then would be a lot different that what it is now. By 1850 the greatest invention for agriculture was the McCormick Reaper, which reduced the need for manual labour to harvest crops. The steam engine which birthed the steam plough was also becoming available. These techniques, practices and invention meant that food production was able to increase, without the demand for more manpower.
The mccormick reaper (pictured) had arrived. This evidently made my family prosper which is the complete opposite side from all I have read from the Highland Clearances, Irish Potato Famine and life eleswhere at this time in history.
Husband – John Allen Leitch
Son – John Leitch
Father – Hugh Paxton
Mother – Margaret Givan
Marie's Genealogy 