Person:Mary Davidson (98)

Mary Davidson’s origins have yet to be established. Her first confirmed sighting is in January 1777, when she married a farmer called Archibald Riddle at Tyrie in Aberdeenshire. He lived in the neighbouring parish of New Deer.

For the first few years after their marriage they lived at New Deer, having three children baptised there between 1778 and 1780. At the time of their first daughter Mary’s baptism in 1778 when they were living at the farm of Pundlercroft, after which they moved to the farm of Affleck, where they were living in 1779 and 1780 when their sons James and Archibald were baptised.

There is then a twelve year gap before the next sighting of the couple, in which time they moved from New Deer to the neighbouring parish to the south of Methlick. During this time they had at least one other child for whom no baptism has been found – they had a daughter called Jean who claimed as an adult to have been born around 1782 at Methlick, and a daughter called Helen who claimed as an adult to have been born around 1788 at New Deer.

In 1792 Archibald and Mary had a daughter called Elizabeth baptised at Methlick, at which time they were living at a farm called Arnybogs a little way north-east of the village. Archibald and Mary have yet to be traced after 1792.