When I first started looking into my family history no one that I spoke to was aware of my great grandfather James Shaw ('grandpa Shaw') having any siblings. However when a photograph of his son Thomas Shaw's wedding turned up, my father's cousins Margaret Murrie and Nancy Flemming identified one of the ladies present as being "Mrs. Brown, aunt of the bridegroom". Here was the first indication that 'grandpa Shaw' did indeed have siblings.
Mrs. Brown proved to be elusive. There didn't seem to be any record of her being married in Scotland. In all I have found 12 siblings of 'grandpa Shaw' and managed to find out what happened to all of them (including 'escapee' William Marshall Shaw, but what of Ann Shaw?
Well sometimes these things are just a little bit further than under your nose. Brown is quite a common name so it is natural to try and restrict the age range in the search, say 18 to 25 years for a marriage. Browne is a name that is not so common and 50 years old is older than most marriages, and that is how Ann Shaw managed to hide from me!
Ann Shaw was working as a dairymaid in Glasgow, (brothers James and Joseph both operated dairies in Glasgow at different times), when she married John Eccles Browne, Master Mariner. He had previously been married to Agnes King, with whom he had at least one son, Alexander. The sea must have been in the blood because John's father was a mariner too. At the time of Ann's marriage in July 1911 both she and John gave No. 15 Camden Street, Glasgow as their address but as this was a tenement with 8 appartments they were no doubt just 'good neighbours'. On the Valuation Roll for 1913-14 Mrs. Annie Shaw Browne is recorded as tenant at No. 11/13, a house and shop, and recorded as a 'milk dealer'. Unusually the property has been sub-let from a Joseph Shaw, dairyman, who is of course her brother! Evidence of a chain of Shaw dairies?
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