Finding William

It was a little hard to find William's records through the years as many of the records had him at different ages. With the combination of family oral history, details of his parents from the Death Certificate and FamilySearch I was able to locate four baptisms in Longforgan where Robert Robertson and Elspeth Hall were the parents (you've got to love the fact that the Scots also preserved the woman's maiden name throughout - such a bonus for confirming you've got the right record).




So I found William Mather Robertson - born 1810. But where did the name "Mather" come from? It didn't seem to be a family name at all. Dad went to Scotland this year and found an interesting tombstone in Longforgan cemetery. It reads:
Sacred to the memory of William Mather who was many years a Farmer upon the Estate of Castle Huntly and died at North Mains upon the 20th day of October 1815 years aged 74 years, 2 months and 1 day and also to that of his wife Elisabeth (the rest is unreadable but looks like the surname ends in "MON" my guess would be "Salmon").

I found another website which gives the following details "Elisabeth Salmon, Widow of the late William Mather, Farmer in North Mains, aged 80, was buried March 3" it appears to have compiled information from an AOL Hometown site which has since been shut down.

The dates make William a contemporary of Robert Robertson - so the supposition is that he named his young son after his friend, who lived on the same estate at the same time. Interestingly this is the only time William's name is given as William Mather Robertson - from then on every document simply gives his name as William Robertson.

So - William Mather - Farmer at Castle Huntly appears to have been his namesake.