Elizabeth Taylor's third birth was special: twins! Elspet and William were born/baptized on December 23, 1794 in Newtyle. (Note: it was not uncommon for Scottish parents to baptise more than one child at the same time. The presence of two sets of twins in the family (Betty and Robert too in 1800) suggests that Thomas and Elizabeth may have adopted that practice.) This biography focuses on William.

There were 9 different William Wightons born in Scotland between 1787 and 1797. You would have thought that this would have resulted in a fair number of William Wighton marriages. Wrong. There was only one such marriage to a Mary Taws in Dundee. The location made this a possible lead on our William, but no children from that union were reported and so I couldn't follow it any further.

I tried the census records next. Using a very wide search term (W* Wighton plus variants) proved to be unsuccessful in the 1841, 1851, and 1861 census records. This was surprising because William signed his brother's (Robert) death certificate in 1858. That record showed William as a resident of Hill of Keillor (High Keillor). Perhaps he didn't move there until after 1861.

William did show up on the 1871 census living at High Keillor, a few residences away from Janet Lindsay (his sister) and Janet Hardie (his niece). He was 76 at the time, unmarried, and working as a shepherd. Living with him was his sister Betty (aged 70, unmarried, and working as a housekeeper). I don't know where William was in the previous decades - perhaps his occupation as a shepherd meant that he didn't get surveyed?

William died December 29, 1880 from senile decay. He was listed as a shepherd, single, and 86 years old at the time of his death. His parents were Thomas Wighton, mason (Master) and Elizabeth Wighton (Taylor), both deceased. The informant on the death certificate was William Lindsay, his nephew. I found no will.

In addition to collecting names and ages of inhabitants, census recorders in 1861-1901 also recorded how many rooms in a residence had 1 or more windows. For example, Janet Lindsay and her son James' house had 1 such room in 1861, four rooms in 1871, and 2 rooms in 1891. When I first saw this change in the # of windows, I thought that crafty James had boarded up some windows after the death of his mother in order to reduce the window tax that he had to pay. (Janet Hardie's residence next door had 2 rooms with one or more windows in 1861, 3 in 1871, and 3 still in 1891.) However, when I researched this window tax, I found out that James' Scottish inclination to not pay any more taxes than he needed to was not at play. Here's the information I found on window taxes.

Sources

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

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

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