Eileen Phelps, Ed
We been studying our Taylor ancestry for more than 180 years! It’s not surprising that we have a lot of ideas we don’t agree on.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first taught its members to learn about their ancestors, so the Taylors would have started by asking Elizabeth Patrick Taylor what she remembered hearing from her husband. Her son Pleasant Green Taylor served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1871-2. He visited his Warren County, Kentucky Taylor cousins to ask them about what they remembered or had in family bibles. We’ve had several historians who provided a lot of local research. This pointed us to North Carolina and the tradition that the Taylors had lived in Virginia before that.
Many Taylor descendants have searched the books in the Genealogy Library in Salt Lake City as well. They also searched the microfilms. The biggest trouble with these sources is the Taylor name. It’s so common. A Taylor name that seems to be a match might not be, even if it’s found in the right place at a useful date. But if it’s the only Taylor name that’s found, someone is sure to tack it onto their pedigree. Our Taylor records of who married who, and who their children were, didn’t get found at all. (The British attacked the church the registers were in during the Revolutionary War.)
We keep finding new clues, but we are convinced that circumstantial evidence as found in books, microfilms, and the Internet will not be complete enough to be considered proof, now that DNA testing has come of age. What we hope for our research is that it will find us more candidates for yDNA testing. This is the kind of testing most valuable for following a surname into the distant past.
* The Zachary Taylor theory: We don’t like this one anymore.
A lot of Taylor families have attached themselves to President Zachary Taylor in error. Mistakes like this were common when records were not widely available and this error is still in the records of some of our Taylors who have been out of touch. Our yDNA study has shown that we are not a match with well-documented Zachary Taylor family members. There is a pedigree linking us with a Zachary Taylor (ancestor of the president) as Joseph Taylor Jr.’s father. It requires us to omit Joseph Taylor (Sr.), who received the Granville grant in North Carolina. We have many documents linking us with Joseph Sr. but none with Zachary. We believe we have completely disproved this theory.
*Joseph Taylor Sr. was born in Orange County, Virginia and married Nancy Walker: We don’t like this one, either.
There is a Joseph Taylor of this description, but we are not connected to him. We would have to drop Joseph Taylor Sr., same as above. When we found the information about the Granville Grant, we had the necessary proof of the connection between Joseph Jr. & Joseph Sr., thus proving that this theory is wrong.
* The theory that Joseph Taylor Sr. came from Norfolk Co., Virginia: We like this one.
Most of the evidence for this comes from William Thorndale’s research and the research into the Granville grant in North Carolina located in what was Tyrell County, then Martin County, then Edgecombe County as the boundaries changed. We are convinced that this theory is correct. It is strengthened by the research comparing Norfolk County neighbors with the neighbors of the Granville Grant property. Many are the same, as neighbors often migrated together.
Neighbor Study – Norfolk, then NC
* The Theory that Joseph Taylor Sr.’s parents were Richard Taylor & Dinah __. We like this one, too, but it’s still a theory in some parts because of the loss of church records.
The support for this idea comes partly from the Norfolk County Tithables. The images and explanations are found here.
Additional support comes from court records. On 16 April 1752 Joseph Taylor was granted the administration of Dinah Taylor’s estate. The link below has the transcription.
The link below is a follow-up report to the link above.
As we mention several times, Bill Linder died suddenly in 2000. We lost our researcher based in Virginia, but he made suggestions for follow-up research to the above that could be done at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and would not require professional genealogical skills:
Follow-up Research to do in Salt Lake City
Here are some reports from Gayle Hix, CG who worked from Salt Lake City:
See also follow-up research done by George E. Taylor of Lawrence, KS published in 1999. Link below.
https://taylorassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/1999-04-05-Letter-to-Bill-and-Brian.pdf
*The Theory that Our Richard Taylor descends from the Early Richard Taylors of Julian Creek: This theory is a possibility but needs yDNA support.
The Pleasant Green Taylor Family paid William Thorndale, CG to investigate just who “Mr. Taylor,” the father of Joseph Taylor, was. He concluded that “Mr. Taylor” was Richard Taylor, son of Richard T and grandson of Richard T who lived at the junction of Julian Creek & the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River in Norfolk County. However, the evidence he found, though comprehensive, was circumstantial. (That’s often the only evidence you can get in the South.) This is a 27-page combined report:
https://taylorassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Thorndale-1978.pdf
The Joseph Taylor Jr. Association also hired Bill Linder, who passed away in 2000, who had contacts near the courthouses. He uncovered some more evidence, but still circumstantial, that supported the Richard theory. We are now digging out information about all the neighbors and witnesses. The Richard line is already posted in one or two places as if it was fact, but it is still considered a theory by the association. No record has been found that mentions Joseph as being a member of this family. There are only records of sales of North Carolina land that link him to them.
One very important document William Thorndale found was a letter to the earliest Richard from a John Hardin/g, husband of Richard’s sister Susannah in London, providing clues as to the first Richard’s possible family in England.
Gayle Hix found some London parish records that seemed to apply to this family but the dates were not an exact match and he has also written a number of reports of the Julian Creek Taylors.
We also hired Phil Dunn to search out more possible London records. He found another family with liklier dates. See below.
We have not been able to find enough yDNA testing subjects to confirm or discard this theory. A positive match would determine kinship but would not prove that one of the Julian Creek Richards was the actual father of our Joseph Taylor Sr.
*The Theory that Our Earliest Richard Taylor and a Roger Hodges Married Manning Sisters: This theory depends partly on the possible theory above.
Since then, our yDNA project has brought another theory into prominence. We have discovered a match of our yDNA with a man whose surname is Hodges. He has worked with us to find the link. There seems to be no question about the marriages, but the question is, do we connect to this Richard, the earliest we have found in Norfolk County, Virginia?
We also find that in the Western Branch area of Norfolk County, the area where we think Joseph Sr. came from, there are a number of place names for both Taylor & Hodges and we find those names in lists of early settlers.
We find that two Manning sisters in Virginia married a Taylor and a Hodges. We are also investigating the possibility that the sister who married a Hodges was the widow of a Taylor. Unlike the other theory, this one starts early and needs descendancy research to tie in with our Taylors. It was difficult to reconcile certain dates between this Richard Taylor and the family Gayle Hix discovered in the London Parish Registers, which prompted the Taylor Association to hire Phil Dunn to continue the London search.
*The Theory that Richard Taylor, of the Western Branch, was a Cooper: This theory may strengthen both theories above.
A Richard Taylor estate inventory shows he owned some cooper’s tools and mentions Dinah, his wife.
Dinah Taylor’s inventory shows no such tools.
A North Carolina deed shows Joseph Taylor Sr. selling cooper’s tools. The presumption is that Joseph acquired the tools from his father’s estate. Laura Winder has located a biography of a Roger Hodges that says he was a cooper by trade, which ties this theory in with the Taylor-Hodges connection theory.
This last theory does not debunk the possibility that there is a biological relationship between the two Taylor families, who lived only a few miles from each other. We know there was at least a long-standing business connection. It is possible that Richard Taylor (the cooper) was a descendant (great or 2nd great-grandson) of the earliest Richard Taylor of Julian Creek, but will we ever find documents to show the exact link? Perhaps not, but we continue to hope that we will find descendants of this family on either side of the Atlantic that we can test for yDNA.
* The Theory that Richard Taylor Sailed on the ship Truelove. This theory relies on evidence from an 1874 book.
John Camden Hotten compiled “The Original Lists of Persons of Quality, Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years, Apprentices, Children Stolen, Maidens Pressed, and Others, who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700” (It’s more briefly known as Hotten’s Lists.)
Many passenger lists were made but few survive, except for quite a few in 1635, We have found a 1635 passenger list where a Richard Taylor, age 16 and a Roger Hodges, age 17, both sailed from London to Bermuda on the ship Truelove. That ship is known to have sailed on to the colonies.
* The Theory that connects us with a London Family, with the correct ages: This theory connects with the letter from John Hardin/g mentioned above.
Phil Dunn, who is accredited in English research, has searched for a family in London with a son Richard who would have been 16 in 1635 and a daughter Susannah (the future wife of John Hardin/g of the letter mentioned above. He has found such a family in the parish of St. Lawrence Pountney, London. He has also found, in two parishes only a quarter-mile away, a couple of John Harding christenings of the right age to become Susannah’s husband.
Richard Taylor Family Research of London
This would make it possible for the first of the Julian Creek Richard Taylors to be the same Richard Taylor who sailed from London on the Truelove. (The fact that the passenger list only shows Richard sailing as far as Bermuda does not mean he couldn’t have continued on. Many lists are lost, and some studies have shown that other passengers chose not to stay in Bermuda because of the limited opportunity to acquire land.)
Arguments against the London Taylors are chiefly a lack of any connecting evidence in surviving Norfolk County, Virginia records that we have been able to search. We have tried to leapfrog over this lack by advertising in the newsletter of the largest association for English research for any Taylor descendants of early London willing to be tested for yDNA, but so far without success. It should be noted that London suffered a serious fire in 1666 that destroyed many records. Few people with the too-common surname of Taylor have been successful in researching as far back as we have already gone.
Phil Dunn issued a white page with suggestions for following up on the Taylor family he found in London records.
A Likely Taylor Family of London: Follow Up
We are watching the Internet for more records to be digitized and looking at all Norfolk County, Virginia Taylor listings to track possible collateral relatives and their descendants who might be willing to be tested for yDNA.
*A completely different hypothesis we haven’t considered yet.
George Taylor, who is connected to a different Taylor family, has been looking for several years at all the Taylor records he can find in Virginia and North Carolina and is attempting to reconcile them into families. He corresponded with Noel Taylor and has looked at our Taylor research from another angle. If we find yDNA evidence that weakens our current favorite ideas, we need to look more widely for other possible Taylor lines.
A 1997 Letter from George E. Taylor
There is another later report from George about records of Richard Taylors found with the theories about Joseph Sr.’s parents being Richard & Dinah.
We have additional research reports about Taylor connections in Norfolk County. The plan is to study the neighbors whose family names appear in North Carolina:
The Joyce Family connection to the Taylors
We have a lot of research that remains to be organized and uploaded. This will take time to do. Stay tuned!
Revolutionary War Research
There is little doubt that Taylors aided the patriots in the Revolutionary War. There is evidence to show that Joseph Taylor Sr. was originally opposed to the idea of fighting the British, as he attended meetings of a group of like-minded neighbors in what has been called “The Gourd Patch Affair” and “The Llewelyn Conspiracy.” He does not seem to have been considered a ringleader nor an informant, but he was required to sign an oath of loyalty to the new nation. Joseph Sr. would have been the Joseph most likely to have met with the neighbors in this business as he was the landowner, as were the others.
Taylor descendants from the Hudnall line have joined the DAR and there is no question but what the ancestor who made them eligible was Joseph Taylor Jr. as his death in the DAR record is listed as the date of Joseph Jr., not Joseph Sr. His birth was listed as Orange County, an old error, slow to be fixed.
It would seem the Joseph Jr. was the family member who was the soldier and the one who was wounded. Joseph Sr. contributed supplies to the rebel cause. Joseph was a private, and either he or his father served the North Carolina militia as a gunsmith.
Here are some fragments of information that need to be searched further:
/https://taylorassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Father-and-son-in-the-Revolutionary-War.pdf
Shari Franke’s Vol 1 of the Taylor History books tells the story she found of the Gourd Patch Affair.. Googling “The Llewelyn Conspiracy” will bring up articles on that subject.
There is also another Joseph Taylor of Martin County who seems to be involved. It looks as though he pursued a career in the NC Militia. For some information about him, see:
/https://taylorassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Another-Joseph-Taylor-who-was-a-soldier.pdf