Anne Rankine was the youngest daughter of a tenant farmer, John Rankine from Adamhill Farm that lay two miles from the Robert Burns's family farm at Lochlea. She married John Merry, an inn-keeper in Cumnock on 29 December 1782, and is buried in Cumnock old churchyard. She maintained she was the 'Annie' of Robert Burns' song 'The Rigs o' Barley', however some maintain that she was merely trying to encourage business at their inn at Cumnock. Her father was brother-in-law to John Lapraik the poet.