William, the fifth child of William Wighton and Margaret Finlay, was baptized April 2, 1769 in Potento.

There was no William Wighton marriage in Meigle that could have been his. I did a search for possible marriages between William and a woman from another parish and discovered the following possibilities:

• A William Wighton married an unknown woman in Liff and Benvie (near Dundee). There was no marriage record but she bore William Wighton 11 children between 1794 and 1812. (William would have been 25-43 years old during this time which is appropriate.) I examined all the potential marriages these children could have had and found no grandchildren with a reference to Margaret Finlay, William's mother.
• A William Wighton married Margaret Smith, 1794 in Longforgan and Dundee. William would have been 25 years old in 1794 which is a possible marriage age. The couple had two children. None of the possible grandchildren had a reference to Finlay.
• A William Wighton married Anne McLauchlan, 1797 in Dundee. I did not pursue this line as it is part of Greg Wighton's family tree.
• A William Wighton married Isobel Nicoll, 1802 in Airlie. William would have been 33. No children to this marriage were found.
• A William Wighton married Isabel Geddis in Easie & Nevay - just east of Meigle. There were no marriage data for the couple, but I found them through the baptismal records of their two children. The oldest child (John) was born in 1809 so all we know is that the marriage took place in 1808 or earlier. In 1808, William would have been 39 which is quite old if this was his first child. However, it's possible that the marriage took place much earlier. The closeness of Meigle to Easie & Nevay gives some support to the possibility that it was William of Meigle who married Isobel Geddis. However, I found no potential grandchildren who had a reference to Finlay.

Given the nebulous nature of the above marriages, we cannot determine which, if any, of the marriages were his. It's entirely possible that he died young, or grew up but never married. I searched for William in the 1841 census but there was no William Wighton of age 70-75 recorded. Nor did I find him in the post 1855 death certificates when he would have been 86 or over.

William and his siblings would have grown up before the establishment of the turnpike road connecting Meigle to Dundee. That turnpike would have meant it was much easier to import coal to Meigle for fuel. Prior to that, Meigle inhabitants would have suffered considerable hardship from the fuel shortages in 18th century Scotland. Click the link to the left to read more about this.

Sources

Family Search, The LDS Genealogical Website: (http://www.familysearch.org/)

ScotlandsPeople Database (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/)

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