History is recorded in place names round the world.
We visited New Zealand several years ago and as we travelled we recognised the names or Scottish towns and villages. Names cropped up in almost every township or farm name. It is a strange but comforting feeling of being at home while actually being far from home. I can sympathise with the desire to take your familiar and familial names from Scotland when you move thousands of miles away.
I read yesterday that the second biggest town in Liberia is called Buchanan.which is a very kent name to me as my mother was a Buchanan. To my knowledge Buchanan is not a place name here, just a family name.
Today I have been writing some Christmas cards and that has really brought it home to me. I was writting to relatives who have built a home in the Barossa Valley in Australia which they have called – Abbotsford – named after a Crescent in Edinburgh from which they emmigrated and also the name of the home of Sir Walter Scott in the Scottish Borders. Another cousin who lived outside Johanesburgh and was descended from Scottish Border farmers was himself known as Tweed which is the name of the River which flows through the family farm in Scotland and the farm fields in Johanesburgh were named after the Border towns in Scotland.
Maybe it would be fun to come to Scotland to see the place where your town name originated!
