Introducing . . . Donald Williamson

The furthest back I have decided to go on this family history journey (for now) is one generation before John Williamson. The reason for this was to give myself some scope so this research had an 'end point', but also because Donald Williamson seems to be the last generation I can find more information on than just his birth and death dates (for now). 

Researching Donald's birth has proven difficult. Thanks to his discharge papers from the army, we have a rough date to work from for his age, however there are no Donald Williamsons born in Cromarty a year either side of the date as stated in his discharge papers. It is widely known that many men over the years lied about their birth date to seem older and join the 'adventure' of the army, however Donald had to lie for other reasons which I will get to soon.

There are two birth certificates listing a Donald Williamson in Cromarty a bit further out though, one from 1783 and one from 1784. Using his age at death from his death register gives me another point to work from, however even from there, technically neither of the birth registers match his age exactly.

One of the two birth certificates, however, place him one day off of being 45 at his death, so for the purposes of our family history, I have trusted that this is the one for our Donald.

Donald was born to Donald and Janet Williamson (nee McIver) on the 23rd of December, 1783, at Daviston in Cromarty. He had brown eyes and brown hair. As he grew up on the farm, in that age, there was no ease of access to schooling yet and Donald grew up illiterate. Once he was old enough, he worked as a labourer.

A few years later, at the age of about 20, Donald Williamson travelled to Inverness to register for the 79th Regiment of Foot, also known as the Cameronian Highlanders. At the time, however, there was a minimum height standard for those over the age of eighteen and Donald was half an inch short at five foot, three and a half inches. If Donald was eighteen, however, the minimum height was an inch shorter, and so Donald came to join the 79th Regiment at the age of "eighteen".

Although he would later move into the 1st Battalion, Donald begun his time in the 2nd Battalion, stationed in England for a few years until they joined Britain's battle against Napoleon Bonaparte, which would change Donald's life forever.

This is where I will end my first blog post about Donald Williamson as the coming posts about the war are decidedly lengthy and often have less to do with Donald specifically and more to do with the 79th Regiment.

Thank you all for your continued support, I am happy to share that I am making much progress towards a book, and will hopefully wrap up the writing and editing parts of the process by September this year. I will share more as things progress.