Different Taylor Families?

OK - it's time to take a breather!

Something about this Taylor research is reminding me of the long, painful process in my Sommer research of finally realizing there were two separate Sommer families who had significant connections to my Mann family, and even now, there isn't any evidence that those two Sommer families were in any way related. They were simply different families who happened to have the same surname. Now I'm starting to wonder if the same is not true with this Taylor research.

What do we have? Well, much of what I am postulating is based on my theory that Henry Taylor who ended up in Brookfield, Ohio with several other people who are related to my Struble-Taylor family, and who recorded a deposition that he in fact moved to Newton, Sussex, NJ with his father when he was a boy and served with Capt. George Ribble with the NJ Militia during the Revolution, that Henry Taylor might in fact have NO relation to my Barbara Taylor whatsoever. So let's just say that up front. It could be an additional utter coincidence that the land owned by Jacob Peter Struble, husband of Barbara Taylor, was located in Newton.

But still, Henry Taylor is more of a lead than we have for Barbara herself, so maybe it's still worth trying to understand who Henry Taylor was. The possibilities seem to be either:

• Henry was the son of Jerononemus Taylor who, seemingly, moved from Bucks County, PA to Sussex County, NJ in the 1760s. Jerononemus died in Sussex county in 1792 and left the mill in Mansfield, Sussex, NJ to his son Henry. In 1804, there was a Sussex deed that involved Henry Taylor of Mansfield and Jane his wife. There have so far been no other records of a Henry Taylor found in Sussex County. He did show up in the 1820, 1830, 1840, and 1850 census' of Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio. It should be noted that Brookfield-Henry also had a son named Henry, supposedly born in 1804 in New Jersey.
• Henry Taylor was related to Joseph Taylor found in Newton, Sussex, NJ in the 1793 tax lists, remembering that Newton was the specific place mentioned in the deposition that Henry gave regarding his life in Sussex County. In addition, there was also a Hunterdon deed that not only described Joseph Taylor and Martha his wife as being of Bucks County, PA but which also placed Joseph in Sussex County in 1804. This Joseph Taylor was apparently born around 1760, while Henry was born about 1757 - thus my conjecture that they might have been brothers, although their father, whoever the man who relocated to Sussex from Bucks, is still unknown. However, we do know with some certainty that this Joseph Taylor was a Quaker, and by virtue of the Hunterdon deed, he along with other Taylor names of interest seem to have ties to Hunterdon County, NJ.

Here you can see why I start to speculate that perhaps there were two different Taylor families in Sussex County in 1800? Everything I read so far about Jerononemus and his wife is that they were of German ancestry, while it appears that the ancestry of Joseph Taylor might have come by way of Virginia and been English. We can associate Joseph Taylor with Bucks County, but what about Jerononemus? Truthfully, Jerononemus could have come from anywhere. Maybe the next step is to see if there is any documentation that ties Jerononemus Taylor and his wife to any other place.

So let me finish by saying that the whole Henry Taylor association I have made could still be wrong. WrongWrongWrong. The circumstantial evidence of his ties to Brookfield, Ohio and Sussex, New Jersey is strong, but not conclusive. We are back to what we know about Barbara Taylor - that she was married to Jacob Peter Struble and they lived in Newton, NJ, and that at least two of their children as well as other Struble relations relocated to Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio.

And this might be as good a time as any to remind myself that all brick walls will some day fall....