A hard life for women

Researching Aberdeenshire family history has given me a greater understanding of living conditions at the time (as well as allowing me to develop a family tree back to about 1700).

It is clear that it was a time of great inequality, as rich landowners controlled most of what happened in rural areas, leaving the mass of working men and women with a life of poverty and hard work.

In many ways women had the more difficult life. Physically they were required to work hard, both inside the home and outside on the farm or in the garden, as well as give birth to many children (as many as 13 in the McNaughton tree) with minimal medical help.

But it must have been difficult emotionally too.

The records of the McNaughton family show several women who had children outside of marriage and raised them without fathers, for a time at least. Several entered marriage pregnant or with children from a previous non-marriage relationship.

We must recognise that there were many reasons why these situations might arise. Poverty made it difficult for men to earn enough money to rent a home to get married. Irregular marriages (those not conducted by clergy) were legal, but it wasn’t always clear whether a couple was betrothed or married.

Some women, especially single or widowed mothers, were left with fewer options to support their children, and sometimes entered into relationships to survive.

And young girls working as servants on farms or in city households were vulnerable to predatory men.

Lizzie and Jane Skinner, who I have been researching recently, are examples of this. They went away from their family to enter domestic service in Aberdeen while in their middle teens. Both had two “illegitimate” children in their early twenties. Jane later had two more. In none of these births is the father named, and it is unlikely they could ever be identified now.

Both Lizzie and Jane went on to get married and raise families that included the step-children as well as those born to their husbands.

And so I decided to investigate what life was like for working class women in nineteenth century rural Aberdeenshire. There is a lot of good information about, and it well illustrates the difficulties facing women at that time.

Some family photos

A distant relative has drawn my attention to an old (1913) book on Moir family history that is able to be viewed online. It is Moir Genealogy and Collateral Lines by Alexander L Moir, and the relevant sections for the McNaughton family are pages 159 to 175.

These pages list descendants of James Moir, who was born in the later years of the 17th century, and includes the following descendants in a direct line:

George Moir (1702 or 1713 to 1784 – I still have to resolve his birth date)
George Moir (1746 to 1825)
George Moir (1790 to 1871)
Elspet Moir (1833 to 1891)

Some of the details are different to what I have found elsewhere, so I am still checking on that.

One of the most interesting parts of this section of the book are the photos after page 168. I am still checking some of the details, but a photo of George Moir (1790 – 1871) and his wife Margaret Calder (1792 – 1866), which you can see on George Moir’s page. I’ll be adding some of the other photos soon.

I’ve also added an old photo of the Methlick Parish church (1780-1867), which would have been the church many of the Moirs were familiar with.

Life on the farm in Aberdeenshire, 18th & 19th centuries

I’ve finally completed (for now) a page on life in rural areas of Aberdeenshire in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Jock and Annie’s ancestors lived a hard life. They mostly had to work long hours, earn barely enough to subsist, eat a very limited diet and have very little social life.

There weren’t many choices of who to marry, and marriage was difficult for the poorest peasant farmers because they often couldn’t afford to rent a cottage. And when they could, it was generally small and basic.

Much of their lives was ruled by forces beyond their control – warfare between England and Scotland, famine, the whims of the rich lairds who owned most of the land, the rules of the church.

It was fascinating to read and research all this, and there is much more that could be said. Maybe I’ll enlarge this page one day.

Beautiful photos and more information

I’ve been making progress on the information on this site:

• Slowly adding to the life information of people and families.
• Some background information on locations where ancestors lived, including Ballater, Cottown of Badenscoth and Mill of Prony – I love some of the names!
• A few photographs of locations. These often require searching to find photos that are freely available.

I have also discovered a beautiful set of photos of the Ballater area, no locations where ancestors lived (as far as I know) but giving a picture of the location and its weather, and the old houses (now often derelict) that the crofters lived in. I especially appreciated the photos of Tullochmacarick, a now deserted hamlet in Glen Gairn, where the remains of a number of old houses, farm buildings and a church can be seen.

These photos by James Davidson (who I have briefly corresponded with) are well worth a look.

Thumbnails of James Davidson’s photos taken from his Flickr page.