Donald McKay

As indicated on son James's page, Donald was a sergeant in the Cameron Highlanders who married Ann Matheson in Dornoch.

Their marriage entry from 1824 reads -

Sergeant Donald McKay of the 79th Regt of Foot was married to Ann Matheson Fourpenny (Fourpenny is a placename)

There was a Volunteers Drill Hall in the town which would have been his domain, one would assume.  The 79th Regiment of Foot was raised as the Cameronian Volunteers and became the Cameron Highlanders who fought Napoleon in the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal and then at Waterloo.  That iconic battle was fought in June 1815 and at first glance it's unclear whether Donald would have been old enough to have taken part. However, he was already a sergeant at his marriage in 1824 so it suggests some seniority.  It wouldn't be unusual for a war-hardened veteran to come home and have the young lasses of the district swooning over him.  He could be, say, 35 and choose a bride of, say, 25 and no-one would think there was anything wrong with that.  They were producing children to 1833 which would be compatible with those ages.  If that was the case then he would have been 26 at the battle.  He could even have been a soldier at the age of 16 but he would then have been a sergeant at 25, not impossible I suppose.  The answer is probably somewhere in between.  All things considered I reckon he would have been at the battle. 

I located the official Historical Records of the 79th Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the account of the regiment's involvement in the connected Battles of Quatres Bras and Waterloo from page 54.  From page 61 onwards is a list of the men involved and there are Donald McKays on pages 66, 70 and 79 (don't worry about the spelling - Mc and Mac are interchangeable), all three having survived unscathed in a battle which saw more than half of the regiment killed or wounded.  These extracts illustrate how lucky he was (assuming he was one of them).

When you look at these figures you can see how the promotion prospects opened up.  This is what a sergeant would have looked like, in 1815 at the battle, but Donald wouldn't have looked much different nine years later.  There is a story of heroism from another Mackay in the regiment at Waterloo here, possibly a relative but no evidence as such.  You can have your fill of how the Cameron Highlanders looked at the battle on this page.  I've selected some below (click to enlarge).

Going back to Dornoch, it seems incredible that there were other couples named Donald Mackay and Ann Matheson breeding from 1844 to 1846 and from 1856 to 1862 in Dornoch (unless our couple had their second wind) and at least one other such couple breeding in Farr in the same county from 1829 to 1840.  They complicate the research but I'm confident of clearly identifying our line.

Sadly, I can't say that about Donald's own parentage as torn pages in the register again leave us with intriguing half-records and I can't identify his birth with any degree of certainty.  However, I do think I have his wife's birth in the Dornoch register in 1801 -

Anne lawful daughter to Alexr Mathison & Jean Murray Achvaich was baptised.

I can't be absolutely certain but Alex and Jean were early children of Donald and Ann so good indications of parentage.  Achvaich is a distance from Fourpenny albeit still in the Dornoch parish, where she was found at her wedding, casting a little doubt, enough to stop me from delving further back.

At son James's death, his father was given as Donald Mackay, Farm Grieve.  He wouldn't have been a soldier forever and a Grieve is a foreman on the farm, just the job for an army sergeant!