A STORYLINE GENEALOGY DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Scattered Stones
The Robertson Family of Blairgowrie
1786–1991 | Perthshire, Scotland to New Jersey, USA
Ten Children. Two Continents. Six Generations. One Family Scattered Like Stones.
"His death certificate lists his occupation as Stone Cutter. It's a fitting epitaph for a man whose legacy would be scattered like stones across two continents."
The Story
In January 1809, a boy named George was baptized in the parish church of Bendochy, Perthshire, Scotland. He was the youngest of seven children born to Duncan Robertson, a weaver and church officer, and his wife Jean Angus. George would grow to become a mason, marry a local woman named Margaret Paterson, and raise ten children in the nearby town of Blairgowrie.
But George Robertson's story doesn't end in Scotland. In the summer of 1872, at the age of 63, he boarded a ship bound for America. Five days after arriving in New York, he was dead — felled by sunstroke in the brutal July heat, a climate utterly foreign to a man who had spent his entire life in the cool Scottish highlands.
Scattered Stones tells the story of this family's diaspora: the great emigration of the 1870s, the Brooklyn network they built, the tragedies that struck them, and the mysteries that remain unsolved more than a century later. The series follows six generations—from an 81-year-old weaver still working his loom in 1841 Scotland to a grandmother in Caldwell, New Jersey surrounded by nineteen grandchildren in 1978.
The Episodes
Before we follow the Robertsons across the Atlantic, we begin where they began: in Clan Robertson territory, where the Highlands meet the Lowlands. The 900-year-old parish church of Bendochy, the dramatic landscape of Blairgowrie, and an introduction to the Scottish records that make this story possible.
Episode 1: Roots in Perthshire (1786–1838)
The marriage of Duncan Robertson and Jean Angus, their children in the townland of Myreridges — including William (a mason like George) and Janet (who became a sick-nurse in Edinburgh). George's own marriage to Margaret Paterson, and the remarkable 1841 census showing Duncan still weaving at age 81.
Episode 2: The Mason's Household (1839–1871)
Thirty years in Blairgowrie: ten children born, a trade practiced through changing times, and a family captured in four Scottish censuses. The calm before the crossing.
Episode 3: The Great Emigration (1869–1872)
David leads the way in 1869. Mary Ann follows in 1871. Then George himself boards a ship in the summer of 1872, never knowing he has only days to live. The crossing that changed everything.
Episode 4: The Brooklyn Robertsons (1872–1900)
Stone cutters and iron moulders, widows and working women — the Robertson siblings build lives in Brooklyn while their mother Margaret finally joins them across the ocean. Then 1892 takes everything.
Episode 5: Scattered Fates (1881–1921)
The ones who stayed in Scotland, the unexpected Liverpool branch, the Canadian wanderer, and the fates of all ten children — from John's 1865 marriage in Dundee to Mary Ann's 1921 death in New Jersey as the last survivor.
Episode 6: The Stone Cutter's Journey (1842–1910)
Of all the children of George Robertson and Margaret Paterson, David was the pioneer—the first to cross the Atlantic, the first to establish the family name in America. For forty years he built a life in Brooklyn, cutting stone, raising eleven children. Then, at sixty-three, newly widowed, he reinvented himself as a game trapper in Georgia. In February 1910, he vanished into the swamps. His boat was found. His body never was.
Episode 7: The Son Who Searched (1884–1924)
Joseph Robertson traveled to Georgia searching for his missing father. He never found answers. When he married Mary Agnes Kenny—daughter of Brooklyn's mat maker—he united two immigrant families we've traced independently. Both parents died twelve days apart in January 1924, orphaning three children. This is where the stone cutter's legacy meets the mat maker's daughter, and where my grandmother's story begins.
Episode 8: The Orphan's Journey (1905–1991)
Orphaned at eighteen when both parents died within twelve days, Lillian Josephine Robertson built a life from the ashes of loss. She married a Brooklyn carpenter, returned to the New Jersey town where her childhood ended, and raised six children—losing her only sister to tuberculosis in 1942 and her daughter Helen Grace at age eight. By her golden anniversary in 1978, she was surrounded by nineteen grandchildren. The orphan became the matriarch.
Related Stories
Perthshire Paperweights: A Genealogist's Discovery — Finding tangible connections to ancestral homelands through Scottish glass art
The Brooklyn Mat Maker — The Kenny family case study that connects to Episode 7
Four Generations in Hats — The Kenny women who helped raise the Robertson orphans
The Panic of 1873 — Why Scottish immigrants returned home during the economic collapse
The Family at a Glance
George Robertson (1809–1872), son of weaver Duncan Robertson and Jean Angus, married Margaret Paterson (1821–1892) in 1838.
Their ten children:
1. Mary Ann (1839–1921) — married Alexander McNab; emigrated to New Jersey 1871
2. James Penmuire Paterson (1841–c.1906) — via Canada to Liverpool, England; gamekeeper
3. David Paterson (1842–c.1910) — stone cutter in Brooklyn; disappeared in Georgia
4. John (c.1846–?) — married Ellen McIntyre 1865; son George's line traced to 1997 in Rattray
5. Margaret (c.1851–?) — tablemaid in Blairgowrie 1881; later fate unknown
6. Clementina Stewart Ramsay (1853–1892) — twin; married Thomas Ferguson; died Brooklyn, chronic endocarditis
7. William Fraser (1853–?) — twin; iron moulder; married Mary Ann Nisbet; in Brooklyn until at least 1900; death unknown
8. Alexander (1856–1901) — remained in Scotland; died Perth
9. Jean (c.1859–?) — fate unknown
10. Isabella Campbell (1860–1918) — married John Lockhart; buried Evergreens Cemetery, Brooklyn
Six Generations: From Scotland to America
Duncan Robertson (c.1760–?) • Weaver, Bendochy
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George Robertson (1809–1872) • Mason, Blairgowrie
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David Paterson Robertson (1842–c.1910) • Stone Cutter, Brooklyn & Georgia
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Joseph Robertson (1884–1924) • Marine Industry, Brooklyn
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Lillian Josephine Robertson (1905–1991) • The Orphan, Caldwell, NJ
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Barbara Ann O'Brien (1935–2022) • Keeper of Stories
About This Series
Scattered Stones is a documentary biography series by Storyline Genealogy. Each episode combines original research with narrative storytelling, drawing on parish registers, census records, vital records, newspapers, and other primary sources to reconstruct the lives of ordinary people who left extraordinary paper trails.
The Robertson family's story spans six generations and three continents — from an 81-year-old weaver still working his loom in 1841 Scotland, to a son who died five days after arriving in America, to a grandmother in New Jersey surrounded by nineteen grandchildren. It's a story of immigration, industry, tragedy, resilience, and the enduring power of family connections across an ocean and across generations.
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