Anne Slater wrote: > In other words "taxman". Well, not really, Anne — or at least not a "taxman" in the usual sense of the word, despite one of the possible spellings shown below. From the "Dictionary of the Scots Language": "Tak(k)isman, Tacksman, Taxman, n. ...One who holds a lease, a lessee. Specif. one who leases land, a tenant farmer, or one who leases land to sublet, also a lessee of property, mills, fishings, the collection of customs, teinds, dues, etc." http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ I don't know whether your forebear was simply a tenant farmer or if he leased land at Rothiesholm in order to sublet to others. I'd be inclined to think, though, that if he was just a tenant farmer he would have been described as a farmer rather than as a tacksman. Certainly some of my own ancestors who rented land in Eday and Evie are just described in the censuses as farmers or in one case (in the census of 1861) as "formerly crofter". I'd suspect that your ancestor must have been a bit further up the social scale than my lot and did sublet to others, though he probably farmed on his own account as well. Norman Tulloch