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Above: Agnes Edwards or Talbert Right: St Vigeans Parish Church Far right: Cottage at Seaton Smithy as it is today | ||||||||
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ST VIGEANS and Benholm are parishes that feature prominently in the Edwards history. St Vigeans parish covers a large area to north of Arbroath where many of our ancestors lived and worked. Benholm takes in the village of Johnshaven. The picturesque church at St Vigeans is well worth a visit. Similarly, the old Meal Mill & Museum at Benholm. It was a surprise to learn we had ancestors from Johnshaven. | ||||||||
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At present, the earliest Edward (s) ancestors we know of were from St Cyrus. John Edward(s) (g-g-g-g-g-grandfather), a day labourer at Little Kethoc married Jean Stephen in 1786. One of their sons, William (b 3 June 1790 in Brechin) married Agnes Duncan in Laurencekirk on June 2 1811. William was a Farm Labourer and later a Drystane Dyker. They seemed to have settled in Johnshaven, where in the 1851 Census they can be found in Weaver Street. William became widowed a few years later but apparently remarried at age 73! His son John was born in St Cyrus in 1819 and married Magdalene Watt. John was the first of many ancestors who were Blacksmiths. Daughter Agnes was born in Benholm parish, on April 2 1841 and by the time she was 9, the family can be found at Tarry Bank, Seaton Blacksmith House in St Vigeans parish, where father John later died aged 41. In 1863, Agnes gave birth to a son, John. His father is unknown, but when Agnes married William Talbert, a gardener, a few months later, it seems John kept his mother's Edwards name. The Talberts had other children, one of whom was a son, Caithness Talbert, a shoemaker. This John Edwards, now a Blacksmith, married Agnes Grieve at 24 Seagate, Arbroath. At age 28 he was working at the North British Chemical Works in Arbirlot, Arbroath. | When he died in 1897 at the young age of 34 from pneumonia, his widow Agnes turned to Caithness (John's half brother), who she married in 1907 in Arbroath. The next John Edwards, our grandfather, was born on October 15 1882 at 24 Seagate, Arbroath. At some point young John moved to Aberdeen and married Elizabeth Smith Dundas. John was a Shipyard Labourer at Hall Russell in Aberdeen. | |||||||
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