On January 5th 1865 my great grandmother Agnes Weir Tweedie was born at Young's Land, Armadale. She was named after her grandmother Agnes Weir. On the first census she appears in her family are at Tweedie's Land, also in Armadale. Her father John was a miner and her mother Rachel, a seafarer's daughter from Fife. They had met when John was working in Fife. Agnes spent most of her life living in the same village and on the same street as I myself was born but after her husband's death moved back to Armadale, where she died in 1944.
From what I have been told she was a tiny woman and known as wee Granny Tweedie by her grandchildren. As well as bringing her own children up, she also raised two of her deceased daughter Rachel's three daughters. This last piece of information was given to me by a lovely elderly lady who knew her and whom I met when I visited my birthplace last summer. I am still in correspondence with her and she is a mine of information.
On January 5th 1727, my 5xG grandfather John Wallace was born in Kirknewton. He was the middle one of seven children, having two elder brothers and one elder sister and two younger brothers and a younger sister. The family moved to Ratho, where John's daughter Agnes, my 4xG grandmother would marry into a family who had made the same move. On the day he was baptized his father's brother William was having a daughter Mary baptized in the same church at the same time. The page from this particular register is torn and though I know where William lived, annoyingly the part dealing with John's father James is torn just after the word 'in', which would have told me where in Kirknewton they were living. John took some finding and I had twice followed wrong trails, even though I knew in my heart of hearts they just weren't right. Then a vital piece of information turned up which in turn pointed to something that had been staring me in the face for over a year, all part of the fun and frustration of family history.
