Coupar Angus' parish records didn't start until 1682, but these revealed a thriving Wighton presence of 7 sons/daughters/cousins who were born in Coupar Angus between 1650 and 1675. From those numbers, we can assume that there was a Wighton presence in the town for at least one or two generations before then. Of course, we already know that Lowrans Wichtane lived in the village and left a will in 1514 so a Wighton presence even further back could be argued. Surnames that appeared in the early parish records were Wighton, Wichton, Wichtan, Wichtaine, Wichtane, Wightan, and Weighton.

Those 7 Wightons who were born between 1650 and 1675 produced 17 sons and daughters who were born between 1675 and 1700. Six would marry in Coupar Angus (most between 1718-1724) but all six of those marriages involved the Wighton daughters and so produced no Wighton offspring. Of the 8 sons born in the second generation, not a single one would appear in Coupar Angus' marriage records and hence the Wighton line just disappeared after 1720.

The Scottish Archives had some legal information on a merchant family in Coupar Angus - that of James Wichton, merchant. With the help of several documents in those archives, plus birth and marriage records, I was able to piece together an interesting story. James (we'll call him James the Elder) was probably born around 1630, well before official records in the parish were begun. James had at least three children: James (The Younger) in 1664, Anna in 1668, and George in 1669. Elizabeth (1674) and Helen (1679) are also possible offspring. (All birthdates are estimates.)

James the Elder had five grandchildren. Three of these ( James the Youngest, Isobell, and George) were born to his first son (James the Younger and his wife Jean Chambers). Two other grandchildren (Martha and Ann) were born to his second son (George and his wife Margaret Malice).

James the Elder must have been a prosperous merchant. He lived in a house named Boghall, was able to lend money to a local noble, and had the wherewithal to have a will on his death. That will revealed that, in 1703, son #2 George was his only surviving son. George received the merchandise in his father's shop, his house, and account book. George was also obligated to pay James Wichtane, grandson of James the Elder, (a.k.a. James the Youngest) the legacy due to him under a bond of provision. (This would be the bond that the local laird, Sir James Ramsey, owed.) The records suggest that James the Younger had assumed some of the shops duties, but he clearly had died before his father.

Inheriting his father's business was apparently not good for George's health because he died in 1703, the same year as his father. George left everything except the bond to his wife Margaret Malice who at some point afterwards married George Robertsone, a merchant in Coupar Angus. A legal dispute of some kind was recorded in 1706 between Margaret Malice and an Anna Vighton (presumably the sister of James the Younger). I couldn't find out what the dispute was about but it might have been an argument over ensuring that grandson James (the Youngest) received his entitlement. If so, Anna Vighton was successful because when the grandson James died in 1713 at the age of 21, he was resident at the family home of Boghall.

The story of these three James provides us with a speculative answer to why the Coupar Angus Wightons disappeared. This merchant had five of the 17 second generation Wightons born in Coupar Angus. However, three were women and one of the sons produced only daughters. The two sons of James the Younger both died young, one before the age of 6 and the other at 21 (James the Youngest). In the merchant's case, his family's male line died out and that's why they disappeared from the records.

The same thing might have happened to the other six second-generation males I noted earlier. Their birthdates (1684, 1685, 1689, 1692, 1692, 1693, and 1696) suggest that they all would have been susceptible to the famines of the 1690s. If they didn't succumb to the famines, there were certainly other health perils. James the Younger probably died before the age of 40. His brother George also likely died in his 30s. James the Youngest died at 21. It's certainly possible that illness claimed many other Wightons in the town.

Could the families have just relocated, similar to what we think happened in Alyth? I don't think this is likely because of those six marriages I mentioned earlier. Six Wighton daughters would get married in Coupar Angus. If their families had relocated prior to their sons getting married, there wouldn't have been daughters left in Coupar Angus to get married. The daughters would have gone with them. (There probably were laws about leaving Scotland and littering the countryside with unmarried daughters before you left.)

Coupar Angus remained basically a ghost town for Wightons from 1720 onwards. There were a few Wighton marriages in the 1820s and 1830s, but there's no evidence that any Wighton stayed long in the village. However, Coupar Angus is a village that should be noted as important in the Wighton history. It was a thriving center for the family in the 1600s and probably before. We know that at least one member of the family was a prosperous merchant. However, in just a few short years, it's possible that many became victims of famine and illness and the line died out. Throughout its history, Coupar Angus had 34 Wighton births and marriages. It is our fourth most populous center prior to 1725.

For those of you from the Meigle Line of Wightons wondering if any of our ancestors lived in Coupar Angus, the answer is possibly but probably not. In 1803, a James Wighton married an Isabel Stirtan in Coupar Angus. That James Wighton might have been a third generation Meigle Wighton - grandson of John Wighton and Helen Mill and son of William Wighton and Margaret Finlay. We can't say for sure however that the James who married in Coupar Angus is ours. I explain the whole sorry mess in the part of the website on the Meigle Line of Wightons. For those of you who were hoping that Coupar Angus was part of our heritage, I have good news. It's possible (but no-one can say for sure) that the Meigle Line originated in Coupar Angus and then migrated from there over the generations to Meigle. That scenario is also explained in the website devoted to the Meigle Line.

Sources

National Archives of Scotland (http://www.dswebhosting.info/nas/)

ScotlandsPeople Database

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