Born - 12 May 1849 - Aberdour, Fife Scotland
Died - 18 June 1906 - Southside East Wemyss, Fife Scotland

John is the first person in this story that is born before statutory records where introduced in 1855. Before 1855 it was not a legal requirement to register a birth or a death. It was done via your local parish. You can see from his birth record that the family register all the family births at the same time, some born in Burntisland some Aberdour. John was born in 1849 however his birth wasn’t registered until 1854, the year his mother died and the year his eldest sister Margaret got married.

In 1851, His dad was a Farm Servant and they lived on High Street, The family still lived there in 1861 However his father was now a Carter with 1 horse. His sister Margaret had married a shoemaker, John Matheson and had moved to Portabello, His brother Hugh had died in 1857 aged 26 of TB. Andrew became a Carpenter and married Elizabeth Boyd, he moved to Grangemouth as did his brother David who married Christian Nicol. His sister Janet had married John Clark and stayed in High street Aberdour her own family, John was a shoemaker. Her Gravestone can be seen in Aberdour Cemetery

Therefore in 1861 That big family that registered all those births in 1854 was down to 4 – John (Father), Ebeneezer, Agnes and John. Agnes married Taylor in 1869 A shoemaker from Dysart. They were only married 5 years as she died suddenly at 27 – cause if death unknown (Yes that’s what is on the death certificate!). Ebeneezer was an 18 year old shoemaker – it would be good to think it was his uncle that gave him the apprentice (couldn’t need that many shoemakers in a village). Unfortunately he died in the poorhouse in 1912, of senile debility (Dementia as it is now known) . Although it’s worth noting that out of this family Ebenezer was the only one who lived into his 60’s.

Paragraph from Poorhouse records below

In 1867 John married Ann Rattray, an outdoor worker, they both living in Townhill. Townhill was called as the “coal town” of Dunfermline and where they had their first child. They had moved back to Aberdour in 1871 and were living with their new family at Dombristle Collery

By 1881 John and Ann had 5 children – Janet, James, Andrew, Thomas and David. Ann and Ebenezer had also been born by the time his wife Ann died in 1885. John had lost his mum young, his sister young and his wife young. John then remarried Margaret (he was her 4th husband) and moved along the coast to Buckhaven. We know he lived in Buckhaven for at least 10 years as he was living at 36 Lawrence Street in the 1901 census. By the time of his death he moved to the neighboring East Wemyss.

Coal mining plays a massive part in my family history as these past pages have shown. Ebenezer, John’s youngest son was a coalminer’s drawer at 16.

Father – John Allen Leitch

Mother – Janet Paxton

Wife – Ann Rattray

Son – Thomas Rattray Leitch