Born - 7 August 1778 in Ely, Fife Scotland

Margaret was born in the Fife coastal village of Elie. It is sometimes spelt Ely or Ellie and is said to be derived “from A Liche, in Gaelic, ‘out of the sea, or out of the water,’ the town being built so near the sea that it washes the walls in some places.

Margaret was the third child born to William Givan, a Mason and his wife Margaret Jervis. They had a large family and I have found the following birth records.

• Anne 1774
• William -1776-1778
• Margaret was the third Child in 1777
• Helen 1781
• Robert 1785-1786
• Jean 1787 – 1796
• David 1787 – 1865
• Lucy 1790
• William 1792-1793
• Peter 1793

Margaret and her siblings were all brought up in Elie and it seems that although infant mortality was a real threat (approximately one in every three children born in 1800 did not make it to their fifth birthday) Margaret had a happy childhood amongst good people.

“I never saw so many good houses of people of family and fortune as in this part of Fife” Sir Walter Scott 1823.

The area was not a bustling centre of opportunity and trade but these areas were nearby and employment was high giving a much higher quality of life than many others of this time.

Out of Margaret’s siblings I have found records that her brother David (1787 – 1865) married Jane Smith. He was a Mason like his father before him and lived in ‘Vennel’ , Elie in the 1841. The houses in ‘Vennel’ are still there today and part of the conservation area of Elie and Earlsferry. (picture taken from when one of the house went up for sale)

In 1851 David was a Mason Master employing 4 men and still living at Vennel. Numbers had now been added to the census and he was living with his family at no5. He became a Builder Master and like Margaret’s husband Hugh he had the right to vote. David died at 70 years old, his gravestone in Elie Churchyard.

I also found a record for her brother Peter who was a Carter. Margaret’s daughter Janet, my direct ancestor, married John Leitch who was also a Carter.

Sadly the record I had found of her sister Jean was a death record ages 8 years old.

Her sister Lucy married Robert Murdoch in Cupar on 1810 and lived in Logies, Fife. In 1851 Robert was a farmer of 7.5 acres. Lucy died on 26 June 1856 in Lahill Craig, Newburn, Fife, Scotland.

The Laird o Logie (click the LINK for the folk song) is a famous song from 1592, you can be sure my ancestors would have sung this living in the very area.

The events described in this short ballad occurred in August 1592, when Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, was found guilty of having conspired to kidnap King James VI of Scotland at the palace of falkland. Wamyss of Logie, who is generally cites as a central character in the ballad, was among the other conspirators found guilty and sentenced to death. On the same night that the sentence was passed, he was rescued by his mistress, a Danish waiting-woman of the Queen’s bed-chamber. In our version of the ballad, Logie has been abandoned in favour of Andrew Steward, Laird of Ochiltree, who was an active partisan of Bothwell.

Margaret and Lucy were both farmer’s wives, The picture above, next to Lucy’s gravestone in Newburn, is of where Lucy would have lived and the picture below is of the farm Margaret was living in during the 1841 census. Sadly this is the last record we have of Margaret, she was 70 years old

It was common practice among farmers, on marriage, to give to their wives what is called pin-money. Yhis consists of poultry, pigs and the whole produce of the dairy with which the wife is expected to cloth and (exclusive of bread, corn and other vegetables) support the whole household. These women worked hard, they dealt with all manor of duties from farm management, homemaking on the farm, fieldwork, sales and marketing of their own produce.

Husband- Hugh Paxton

Daughter – Janet Paxton