He succeeded his cousin Sir Ralph Anstruther, 7th Baronet, in 2002, inheriting two Anstruther Baronetcies – of Nova Scotia, of Balcaskie (1694) and of Anstruther (1700). His cousin had been hereditary Carver to the Sovereign in Scotland, but the office passed instead to his second son, Toby. He also believed (almost certainly incorrectly) that he held the British baronetcy of Anstruther (1798), but its remainder (to "heirs-male of the body legitimately begotten" of the grantee) would have made it extinct on the death of Sir Windham Carmichael-Anstruther, 11th Baronet, in 1980, as most reference books, such as Burke and Debrett, have noted.