Ex Libris James Donald

Not sure if I am making too much of this - but am sat in the special collections library holding Grahame's Birds of Scotland. And on the inside front cover:

Surely that is quite an amazing coincidence - that I should have found a book published in Scotland in 1806 and owned by my great x 4 uncle in a library in Virginia? The book's author died in the same house as James Donald and I believe both are buried in the same lair in Glasgow.

Here's more details about the book - just so you can rush out and get your edition:

Contains a long poem against slavery which I need to get to grips with - but also contains this general note at the end which I liked - his spelling:

Glossary
I have, now and then, used a Scotch or an old English word, where a modern English synonime, equally emphatic, did not present itself. I am no friend to those phrases with are commonly, though often erroneously, called Scotticisms, or to any innovation which would tend to destroy the idiom of the English language; but I could never seen any good sense in the indiscriminating anathema, which would proscribe every word that happens to be unknown, or little known, on the south side of the Tweed.

Anyone who knows what all these words means wins a prize: Bield; Skep; Quern; Know; Cleugh; Blae; Soughing; Shaw; Heartsome; Boutree; Skillet; Cannach; Smiddy; Blawn; Rowan-tree. 

So now I am sat in the same chair that I sat in when I held the letter from Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald and am now holding a book that James Donald held - probably even licked the ex-libris sticker and put in in place himself! Hands across history or what.

2018 UPDATE: Booklet on the life and times of Captain James Donald.