Born - 26 September 1767 - Dunfermline, Fife Scotland
Died - 12 June 1832 - Beath, Fife Scotland

Andrew was born 26th September 1767 to James Leitch and Isabel Wilson in Dunfermline Heugh. This means over 250 years ago Andrew was born and I have a record of it. I also know that Andrew had an older sister, Elizabeth born in 1765. This, many of our Fife historians will realise is at the time for Adam Smith – Kirkcaldy’s Philosopher. We are now back to the beginning of the Industrial revolution.

This picture below is what the Heugh Mills, where Andrew was born were like in the late 1700s

Below are some pictures of what the Heugh Mills look like now, I have walked these very paths only weeks ago – I find it all very surreal to be walking in the steps off my ancestors.

Andrew married Janet Beveridge in 1791 in Rosebank, Dunfermline. Records show that in 1794 a new line from Limekilns to recently acquired coal mines around Baldridge and Rosebank were built. The gauge of Elgin’s lines was 4 ft 3in The waggon capacity increased from 50 cwt to 60 cwt between 1784 and 1796. The waggons had two iron wheels and two plain wooden wheels, and were drawn by two horses. The main flow on the second line was to Charlestown harbour. It is not certain when the line was relaid with edge rails, but it may have been completed in 1841. I have no doubt that this was Andrew’s life, he was a coalminer, like his father before him, working in these coalmines, the coal was then transported to the shore, onto ships.

I have records that show Andrew and Janet had many children, John is my direct ancestor who lived in Aberdour, a neighbouring village, and was a Carter.

Below is what I believe to be Andrew’s death certificate, as it was before statutory records no next of kin is recorded however it is where we would expect Andrew to be living at this time after putting a time line together from his children’s births. It also confirms that there is no census record of him as these begun in 1841.

Thistleford “Ford where thistles grow (in abundance)’. Both the ford, Thistle Ford, and the small settlement deriving from it, Thistleford, are named on the OS 6 inch 1st edn. The ford itself, over the Lochgelly Burn, was on the old road north from Burntisland, called on the above-mentioned map ‘The Old North Road’. Passing through Montquey and Balmule ABO, it crossed over Moss Morran where the ethylene plant now is. Owen Silver, in his excellent book on the roads of Fife, refers to this road as ‘the old White Rashes road’ (1987, 114). This old road was replaced by a new road constructed 1816–17, a section of the Great North Road, basically the modern road from Burntisland to Cowdenbeath

Son – John Leitch