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Archiver > YORSTON > 1996-07 > 0838047238


From: Gordon Yorston <>
Subject: Yorston Family History
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 11:53:58 -0300


Dear Yorstons and Yorstones and Yourstones, etc.
I am Richard Yorston, Gordon Yorston's son from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I
actually live in Chile where I'm studying at university. Last April my
father and I came across a family history shop in a shopping mall in
Santiago, and suprisingly enough they had the name Yorston. So we got the
family history fo Yorston and it goes like this:

> The Scots surname Yorston is a variant form of the name Yorstoun, an
old surname in the parish of >Corstophine, Edinburgh, where a family of this
name held the land to the east of the village known as >"Yorkstounis", thus
the locative origin was revealed, deriving from the name of the place where
the initial bearer >once lived or held land, affording him a suitable means
of identity in his local community. A family of the same name >was found
early in Orkney, and one Robert Yorkstoun was recorded as "quondam" tacksman
of the links of Burray >in the year 1492, and again in 1502. An early
connection of the Yorstons with Burray was indicated by the old >rental, but
they can have been no more than tacksmen there. The evidence of the Uthel
Book points strongly to >Rowsay as their home, and is corroborated by later
documents, and by the fact of an early marriage with the >Craigies of
Brough. Herbert C. Yorston died in the Fife in the year 1939.
> Among the early written references to the name or a variant form we
read of one called William Yorstoun, and >James Yorkstoun, who were
burgesses and charter witnesses in Edinburgh in the year 1484, and Thomas
Yorstoun >was a goldsmith in Edinburgh in the year 1672. One Edward
Yorkstoun was recorded heir of his father, Thomas >Yorstoun, goldsmith and
burgess of Edinburgh in 1685, and the name of Robartt Yorkstane was an
assize >concerning the rights respited for the slaughter of John, Earl of
Caithness in 1539. The arms appended here were >awarded to Carthew Yorstoun,
East Tinwald, in the county of Kirkcudbrightshire in 1861.

>BLAZON OF ARMS: Azure, a crescent between seven mullets argent, on a cheif
or, three swords, two in saltire and >one in fess, between a dexter hand
couped in pale and a man's heart gules.
>CREST: A tower proper.
>MOTTO: Mens conscia recti (A mind conscious of rectitude).
copyright Historical Research Center

Well, that's all folks, hope you enjoy it.

Richard Yorston

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