Jane Gow (ggggma)
Jane Gow: from Moulin to Meigle
Jane Gow c 1818 was from Moulin in Perthshire. Her parents were John Gow and Elspet Ferguson of Blair Atholl. There is no record of Jane’s birth but she had four older sisters, Elispet, Janet, Christian, and Catherine, who had their baptisms registered. We know that Jane’s parents were John and Elspeth as her marriage certificate says she is from Moulin, a parish north of Pitlochry and near Blair Atholl.
John (a farmer) and Elspet married in Blair Atholl on January 15th 1802 and had their first two daughters there at a place called Clunebeg.
Clunebeg shows up on maps as a farm south and east of the town of Blair Atholl, four minutes drive east of Blair Castle. It isn’t called Clunebeg now but is just north of Aldclune.
Clunebeg on a 1900 OS map
Then they must have moved to Moulin as their other three daughters were born in that parish. Christian’s birth record says she was born at “Milton of Straloch”.
This shows on a 1865 map as a cottage on the road to Pitlochry.
Milton is just to the left of the large letter “N”
Google map showing location of Milton cottage (no longer there)
Straloch Loch doesn’t show up on the 1865 map as a body of water - perhaps it is a shallow pond formed when the fields were drained? “Straloch Highland Holidays” shows on the old map as “Mains of Straloch.”
1841 Census of Moulin showing John Gow (75) and Jane Gow (20) at Dirnanean
This census may show Jane living with her father the year before her marriage, as Dirnanean is very close to Straloch. Jane’s age is 20 which is a bit young (based on her death certificate) but in the 1841 census ages were rounded down. This would mean that John Dow was born around 1766. I have no records for him other than his marriage in 1802 which would have him at 38. Some farmers did marry late.
Jane married William Clark c 1813 (from Bendochy) in January 1842 and they had their first child, Catherine Clark, in November of the same year.
I don’t know anything about Jane’s life or character - as a homemaker she is invisible to history. The big event of her life other than marrying William and moving to Meigle was probably when her daughter Catherine had an illegitimate child at the age of 21. Her husband William took the lead in helping Catherine to pursue a paternity claim against a local farmer Robert Neil Wedderburn.
We don’t know how Jane responded to this - but she died in 1866 from heart disease at the young age of 49 only three years after the baby (Elizabeth) was born, leaving her second oldest daughter Jessie with the responsibility to keep house for her father younger siblings, and Elizabeth.
Catherine left home at some point when Elizabeth was a young child so Jane’s illness and death must have been really hard for the family.
Jane is buried in the churchyard at Meigle Parish Church and her gravestone is very substantial for a tenant farmer’s wife, suggesting that she was much loved.
1875 Erected by William Clark, Washington, in memory of his wife Jane Gow…
The grave stands a few years away from the grave of the Wedderburn family where Robert Neil Wedderburn is buried with his parents, Robert Wedderburn and Barbara Hay. Robert and Barbara had both died by the time Elizabeth was born so never knew about the paternity suit.