Ann Faichney

Ann was born to Willian Faichney, a wood turner, and Ann Tinnock in Kilmadock, which really means Doune and round about there.  It was in Deanston village just over the water from Doune, one of those industrial settlements in which the cotton mill owners had set up accommodation for the workers.  The buildings now house the Deanston Distillery.  Ann was one of William's second family as in 1841 he had a wife aged 25 and a daughter aged 12.  His eldest children were already working in the mill at 12 and 10 years old.  The family moved to Tillicoultry to work in the woolen mill there and Ann married James McLaren, a blacksmith.  There is the possibility they had known each other from childhood as James was born in Kincardine near Doune but as all his details are sketchy we really can't tell.

We do know that Ann and James tried their luck in the industrial areas of Paisley and Glasgow but Ann returned to the Ochills after losing her husband.  Losing is a general term as we don't know at the time of writing whether he had died or just gone missing as Ann is only marked as a widow in 1891 just as she was about to remarry.  All of this made her records a bit tricky to locate as she was Ann Faichney then McLaren, back to Faichney, back to McLaren again then eventually Gibson.

Ann couldn't write her own name at the time of her marriage and signed with an x.  Her husband, the blacksmith could, it seems.  There is no doubt that Ann was older than James by between 2 and 4 years.  He was born in 1843 and she was born some time between 1839 and 1841 (she was 12 in the 1851 census).  On the marriage record he has slightly raised his age and she has dropped hers.  This is not uncommon in the records as women liked to be seen to be younger than their actual age.