William Shiels (1833-1911) & Agnes Brown
William was only six years old when his father died in 1839. His mother, Barbara, remained at East Mains, where she raised her younger children and later became a teacher. William continued to live there with his mother and eventually raised his own family at East Mains.
As a young man William worked as an agricultural labourer, but he later became a bootmaker — a trade that would become an important part of this branch of the Shiels family for generations.
On January 14, 1859, William married Agnes Brown, daughter of David Brown and Margaret Shiels of Libberton, near Biggar. William and Agnes had nine children and remained in Scotland throughout their lives, but many of their children and grandchildren would eventually leave Scotland and establish Shiels families in other parts of the world.
East Mains — The Family Home
East Mains would remain at the centre of this branch of the Shiels family for generations. After Thomas Shiels died in 1839, the property passed to his widow, Barbara Jean Cranston. Her youngest son William James continued to live there, eventually raising his own family with Agnes Brown at East Mains.
When Barbara died in 1882, East Mains passed to William. After William’s death it went to Agnes and eventually to their unmarried daughter Barbara, who would spend her entire life there. In this way, the old family home passed from one generation to another while other members of the family began leaving Scotland for new lives around the world.
Barbara’s older sister Margaret had taken a very different path. After marrying, she left Scotland for Canada, leaving her young son Robert to be raised by his grandparents at East Mains. Nearly fifty years later, Margaret returned to Scotland and appeared at the door of East Mains without warning. When asked why she had not written to say she was coming, her simple reply was, “I had nothing to write about.”
Barbara welcomed her sister home, and Margaret remained at East Mains for the rest of her life. The reunion, however, was not always peaceful. Family stories tell of the two sisters arguing frequently. After one particularly memorable disagreement, they supposedly stretched a string down the middle of the house and declared, “You stay on your side and I will stay on mine!”
Shiels the Bootmaker — Biggar
Bootmaking became much more than William’s occupation — it became a family business. His eldest son Thomas established “Shiels the Bootmaker” on High Street in Biggar, where the family earned a reputation for making quality boots and shoes. Several members of the Shiels family would eventually work in the shop.
Among them was Thomas’s niece Mary Shiels, known throughout the family as Moll. At the age of eighteen, Moll faced a choice between getting married and continuing in the shoe business. She chose the business.
It proved to be a lifelong decision. Moll became an important part of the shop and eventually inherited Shiels the Bootmaker from her uncle Thomas. She continued operating the business until her retirement in the early 1960s. After closing the shop, Moll purchased a house directly across the street, where she and her sister Agnes lived for the remainder of their lives.
Although the business itself disappeared, one remarkable reminder remained. The name SHIELS had been embossed into the shop’s front glass windows. When Dan’s two daughters visited Scotland in the late 1990s, the lettering could still be seen. For Dan’s youngest daughter, seeing the family name still there after so many years sparked an excitement about her family history that she had never shown before.
When Dan and Judy returned to Biggar in 2008, the old lettering was still visible in the glass — faded with time, but more than forty years after the shop had closed, the Shiels name was still there.
A Family Spreads Around the World
While William James and Agnes spent their entire lives in Scotland, their descendants would carry the Shiels name far beyond East Mains and Biggar.
Yet distance did not always mean the family connections were lost forever. Sometimes they survived in old photographs and family memories. Sometimes they were rediscovered generations later. And, more recently, the Internet has allowed descendants separated by thousands of miles to find one another again.
The story of William and Agnes’s family therefore became much larger than East Mains. Their descendants scattered around the world — but some remarkable connections remained.
Where the Family Went
William James and Agnes had nine children — six sons and three daughters. Their lives provide a remarkable picture of how quickly one Scottish family could spread around the world.
Thomas (1859) remained in Scotland and became the owner of Shiels the Bootmaker in Biggar. He married later in life but had no children.
Margaret (1860) eventually moved to Canada with her husband, George Thompson. Her son Robert, who had remained behind at East Mains as a child, later emigrated to Saskatchewan. After losing her husband and children in Canada, Margaret returned to Scotland and spent her remaining years with her sister Barbara at East Mains.
David (1862) died at only fifteen years of age, while Barbara (1863) never married. After working for many years in Edinburgh, Barbara returned to East Mains and remained there for the rest of her life.
John (1864) raised his family initially in Scotland. His eldest son William emigrated to Canada, and two years later John, his wife Christine and daughter Nellie followed.
George (1865) remained in Scotland, married Margaret McMorran and raised seven children. His children remained in Scotland, although a later descendant would settle in Australia. It is through George that our story will continue.
Adam (1867) and Elizabeth Williamson raised nine children in Scotland. Their son William eventually settled in New Zealand, while another son, Thomas, emigrated to Ontario, Canada.
William (1872) left Scotland for Midland, Ontario, Canada, while the youngest child, Agnes (1878), married Thomas McBride, raised five children in Scotland and moved with her family to the United States in 1910.
From one family at East Mains, descendants eventually established themselves in Scotland, Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
An Unexpected Connection in Winnipeg
One of the most surprising connections to William James’s branch was found much closer to home.
Dan eventually met Christine Cox of Winnipeg, who had been born Christine Shiels and belonged to the same generation as Dan, but descended through William James rather than through John’s branch.
One evening Dan visited Christine with several of his old family photo albums. As they looked through photographs of Dan’s great-grandparents, Thomas and Rachel Shiels, they came to an old picture showing Thomas and Rachel with a visiting family.
Christine suddenly pointed to one of the children in the photograph and exclaimed:
“That is me as a little girl!”
The photograph had unknowingly brought together two branches of the Shiels family. Tom and Rachel descended through John Shiels (1826), while William and Janet belonged to the branch of John’s younger brother, William James Shiels (1833). Two lines that had separated generations earlier were together again in Canada.
Years later, that same photograph helped reconnect the story. What had once seemed like an unidentified group of visitors now had names, relationships and a place within the larger Shiels family.
A Connection from New Zealand
More than a century after another part of William James’s family left Scotland, a new connection arrived unexpectedly by email.
Carol Adams of New Zealand had been searching the Internet for information about her Shiels family when she discovered Dan’s original family history website. She contacted him to ask whether there might be a connection.
There was.
Carol’s great-grandfather, William Shiels, born in 1887, was a grandson of William James Shiels. He emigrated to New Zealand about 1920 and had three sons there. Carol knew very little about her Shiels relatives beyond New Zealand, and suddenly the website opened the door to generations of family history she had never known.
Carol has since obtained a copy of the Shiels family history book, giving her a much fuller picture of the family in Scotland and of the branches that eventually spread around the world.
The timing of Carol’s email made the connection particularly special. Dan had recently been considering whether it was time to close his old family history website. Carol’s message provided a wonderful reminder of why the history had been placed online in the first place.
More than a century after the family separated, a descendant in New Zealand had found her way back to the Shiels family in Scotland — through a website created by a distant cousin in Canada.
The Story Continues
William James spent his life close to East Mains, but the generations that followed carried his family far beyond the Scottish Borders.
Some remained close to Biggar, where the Shiels name became familiar through the family bootmaking business. Others crossed oceans and established new lives in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Generations later, some of those scattered branches would find one another again — through old photographs, family memories and, eventually, the Internet.
Yet the line we will follow remained close to the places where this story began.
The next generation follows George “the Bootmaker” Shiels and Margaret McMorran of Biggar.