Marjory Melville

Marjory was known as May and was born in Methil to David Melville and Barbara Brown.  The name Barbara didn't pass down through the family as she only had two sons as far as we know.  She was a flax-spinner before she married Andrew Brown who was a flaxdresser so presumably they met at the mill and as her father David was also a flaxdresser the connections are all pretty tight.  She was Andrew's second wife so she brought up more than just her own two boys.  I say her father was a flaxdresser but he only appears in May's birth record as such and is a seaman in May's death record.  He might have been a seaman but as it was young David Brown who reported the death maybe he got his grandfathers mixed up.  My guess is that he was never a seaman.

Marjory's age is wrong in the 1871 census where she is listed as 34, same as the previous census.  It's almost certainly just an error by the enumerator although some women tried to lose years each census.

Seemingly, after the last of the family left home she started selling fish, not having been noted as a fish hawker before.  Maybe she always did but hadn't seen it as a full-time job.  It's difficult to tell.  A hawker is someone who sold from a cart, whether hand or animal drawn, usually with street cries to draw custom.

Sadly, as with a number of old folks in the trees, she ended up in the Poorhouse, the Kinghorn establishment being just outside the town near the road to Kirkcaldy and nowadays converted to the Abden Flats.