Thursday, November 13, 2014

George Taylor - Signer of DoI

As usual, geography is important in these discussions. I was reminded by my smart cousin J. about a reference on ancestry called A Frontier Village, Pre-Revolutionary Easton. This source has many references to George Taylor (1716-1781) who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence! Apparently, if all the various references are talking about the same person, George Taylor resided in both Easton (Northampton county, PA) and Bucks County, PA, as well as Greenwich township in New Jersey. The date associated with the New Jersey location is 1779.

Who was George Taylor? This source says he was born in Northern Ireland. He apparently only had one child who survived, James Taylor, and through James, five grandchildren: George, Thomas, James, Ann, and Mary. He also had 6 children with his housekeeper, all with the surname Smith: Naomi, Sarah, Rebecca, Naomi, Elizabeth, and Edward. Finally, when George Taylor died in 1781, he was buried in the Lutheran burial ground in Easton.

So does this George Taylor have any connection to our Taylor family? Probably not, mostly because his residence in our area of New Jersey did not happen until the end of his life. His son, James Taylor, died in 1775, and it might be worth knowing what became of George's grandson named George since we know there was somebody of the name George Taylor in Sussex County in the 1790s. Even so, I don't rank this candidate high on our list of possibilities.

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