Joseph Taylor and Martha Canby

At first, my number one candidates for the parents of my Barbara Taylor were Joseph Taylor and Martha Canby. Here is a summary of the evidence I have explored pertaining to them:

• According to a Canby genealogy compiled by Janis Kerr Arnold (published 1981, updated 1992), Martha Canby married Joseph Taylor in 1788 at the Upper Makefield Monthly Meeting in Bucks County, PA. It further states that Joseph Taylor was the son of William Taylor, and the Taylor family were members of the Falls Monthly Meeting. The Falls Monthly Meeting records state that Joseph, wife Martha, and two children, Sarah and Banner, were granted a certificate to the Wrightstown Monthly Meeting in 1803.
• The 1793 tax list Newton, Sussex, NJ lists Joseph Taylor. Recall that Newton is the place where the father of Henry Taylor relocated from Bucks County, PA.
• Four Sussex County deeds seem to pertain to this Joseph Taylor:
• 1800 - Andrew Malick to Joseph Taylor of Greenwich, $1500 for land in Greenwich
• 1802 - Joseph Taylor of Greenwich and Martha his wife sold to Carpenter
• 1804 - Joseph Taylor and Martha his wife of Whites, Bucks, PA to George Gresler of Durham, Bucks, PA, involving land in Alexandria Twp, Hunterdon, NJ. The end of this deed has a declaration by a judge in Sussex who states that Joseph Taylor came before him to sign the deed! This would seem to indicate that Joseph was actually residing in Sussex, NJ rather than Bucks, PA. [As an additional side note to this record, there is/was no Whites township in Bucks county, PA. At first I thought it was the clerk's mistake and what was meant was White Twp in Sussex, but that township was not formed until much, much later. Instead, I now think the clerk meant to write WRIGHTSTOWN Twp in Bucks, PA, which is a place we know was associated with this Joseph Taylor.]
• 1817 - Joseph Taylor, some dispute (I think) with John DeCamp of Morris County over boundaries of land in Byram twp in Sussex. I'm not entirely sure who prevailed!

All of this looks very promising, except for one niggling detail - the dates. If Joseph and Martha were married in 1788, they were probably not the parents of Barbara Taylor who married JP Struble in 1802. I suppose it's possible that Barbara could have been 14 when she married, and maybe that's why she outlived Mr. Struble for so long. But still....

In any case, I have so far not found any birth or death records that apply to either Joseph or Martha. Supposedly he was born around 1760, so that would not make him the father of Henry Taylor who moved to Sussex.  More likely, Joseph and Henry Taylor were brothers. And what became of Joseph and Martha? Did they move back to PA from NJ, or did they stay in NJ? What happened to their land in Greenwich?

No shortage of questions, but it seems that we might still be looking for a different Taylor who moved from Bucks to Sussex who could qualify as Barbara's father. Now the name William Taylor floats back to the top!

The Question of Quakers

So far all the Germans in my colonial research have been Lutheran, but this new research is starting to open a different door to the question of Quakers. Why do I say that? Well if I am to consider the possibility that my Taylor line came from Bucks County, PA, most of the documentation I have found so far comes from Quaker Monthly Meeting records, specifically the Falls and Wrightstown Monthly Meetings in Bucks County, PA, and the Kingwood Monthly Meeting in Hunterdon, New Jersey.

This is an entirely new topic for me, so please excuse me while I try to learn more about it! Here are a few high-level facts which I think are true:

• The Quaker religion was started by an Englishman named George Fox, generally around 1652.
• George Fox and William Penn visited the Rhine valley in Germany in 1677 and they invited several families to join them in the "Holy Experiment" that would be Pennsylvania. In 1682, 13 Quaker families sailed to Philadelphia and founded Germantown.
• Generally speaking, Quakers had no preacher, they allowed women to speak in their meetings, they were anti-slavery, and they often would not take any oath of allegiance, not because they were not willing to give their allegiance, but because they would not swear. It seems they were widely persecuted in New England as well as some other colonies, including Virginia. 

All of this is foreign to me, especially after now researching for several years about my German relations who were distinctly Lutheran. So that got me wondering about what it might have been like to be Quaker in early Sussex County, New Jersey. Imagine my complete surprise to find that a Quaker meeting house was erected near Scott's Mountain around 1753 by Samuel Smith who lived in Greenwich and who petitioned the meeting in Kingwood, Hunterdon, NJ to start his own meeting house! See this link  for a picture and more details.

So wowee. It looks to me like being Quaker in Sussex County, New Jersey in the mid- to late- 18th century was a possibility. This all gets more interesting by the minute!

The Taylor Name

One of the first things we need to consider in researching our Taylor family is their origin. Here are the possibilities as I see them so far:

• They were English, which is to say British. Family trees that hook into Charles Taylor and wife Barbary from Orange County, Virginia seem to suggest that family was British. (And by the way, I am so far NOT ready to spend time trying to connect my Taylor line to the Charles Taylor story - there are much bigger questions closer in time to my Sussex County family to answer first.) But were English Taylor's Loyalists? That is a different question for a different post.
• They were Irish.  I've seen a couple cases already where the name TYLER became TAYLOR.
• They were German. Considering just how much German lineage is in this part of my family tree, it would "fit" better if the Taylor family had German origins. Here is some information to keep in mind about the Taylor name:

The Schneider surname was generally adopted by one who made outer garments; a tailor. From the the German verb schneiden, meaning "to cut."

SCHNIEDER is another German variant spelling, while SNYDER, SNIDER, and SNEIDER are Dutch spellings of this common surname. The spelling SCHNYDER is often of Swiss origin. ZNAIDER is a similar Polish variant. SCHNEIDER is similar to the common English surname TAYLOR.

However, so far I have seen no indication of occupations associated with any Taylor family other than perhaps farming. And it seems hard to think that any Snyder family got off the boat and immediately changed their surname to Taylor, although I suppose it's possible. The only connection I have found so far between any Snyder and Taylor was in one 1818 deed in Sussex county that involved George Snyder late of Greenwich, where heirs listed included MYERS, SNYDER, HAUP, CUTZ, RYMAN, SUTTON, RANDALL and Samuel TAYLOR. Interesting, eh?

DNA Clues & Hunterdon County, NJ

Happily I have a third cousin who is the best genealogy research buddy ever. Also happily, she is good at things that I am not good at, and the subject of DNA matching is one such topic. Cousin J. had written to me earlier this year to say that we increasingly seem to have Taylor connections through a family called SWALLOW. Specifically, Mary Swallow, daugther of Jacob Swallow, married William Taylor in Amwell, Hunterdon, New Jersey in 1768. Many internet trees name this William Taylor as the father of our Barbara Taylor. So now in addition to looking for clues in Bucks county, PA (home of Henry Taylor who moved to Sussex, NJ during the Revolution), we're also looking at another new place: Hunterdon county, New Jersey.

So here's what I found in probate records in Hunterdon county, NJ on my recent trip to SLC. Note that there were plenty of Taylors in Hunterdon county, but here are the ones that seemed to pertain to anybody named William Taylor:

• In 1806, William Taylor wrote his will, mentions his dear wife Mary, and sons Mahlon, Jacob, John, Samuel, and daughters Mary (single) and Catherine, wife of Henry Vandolah. When Mary of Amwell subsequently wrote her will in 1818, it mentioned her daughters Catherine Vandolah, Mary Wilson, and son Jacob. Note there is no mention of a daughter Barbara.
• In 1815, Alexander Rea, Richard Hixson, and William Taylor Jr, all of Kingwood, Hunterdon, NJ, executors of the estate of George Rea, deceased, sold property to Daniel Potts, also of Kingwood.
• In 1826, a William Taylor of Amwell wrote his will which I believe was proved in 1838 (this needs checking). It also mentions a wife named Mary, and then lists five executors to split his estate: Jacob Shumaker and Taylors (presumed by me to be sons): William, George, James S., Jabez G. Again, there is no mention of any Barbara. However, it is worth mentioning that there was at least one significant deed in Sussex county in 1822 that involved the entire Summers family (of our family tree) conveying property to William Taylor of Amwell, Hunterdon, NJ and Jacob Shoemaker of Oxford Twp. for $15,000! This would seem to suggest that this William Taylor definitely had ties to Sussex county!

Which of these William Taylor's was the husband of Mary Swallow?  Hmmmm.

In checking deeds in Hunterdon county, the following seemed applicable to a William Taylor, but neither seems to have had a wife named Mary:

• several deeds involving William F. Taylor and Margareta wife of Lebanon, Hunterdon, NJ
• 1817 deed involving William Taylor of Kingwood, Hunterdon, NJ and wife Elizabeth, land sold to Peter Sigler of Oxford, NJ, land was in Kingwood. This one is significant to us because of
• Oxford, NJ is the NJ township where so many of our relations came from
• Peter Sigler is in our family tree, born about 1730, wife Elizabeth, they had a daughter named Margaret who married Jacob RUSH, and these two are our 5th g-grandparents in another line that also made its way to Michigan

And now just for fun, I checked (again) the deeds in Sussex County. In 1822, George Hiles, James Hiles, and Daniel Hixon, who were variously connected to the estate of James Loder who died in 1792, transferred their part of the Loder estate - 232 acres in Oxford Twp. - to William Taylor, the husband of one of James Loder's daughters, Hannah.  William is noted as being "formerly of Sussex County, now of Amwell, Hunterdon, New Jersey." Holy cow. Are we now looking at yet a third William Taylor in Amwell? Or perhaps Hannah Loder died and William remarried to Mary Somebody? Probably the William Taylor who was connected to Shoemaker in Oxford?

So there stands what little research I've done about a William Taylor from Hunterdon county, NJ. I might guess that the man who wrote his will in 1806 was the William Taylor who married Mary Swallow, but I don't see any of their relations in our family tree, so maybe one of William Taylor's siblings is the father of our Barbara, but who were they? On the other hand, the other William Taylor who was associated with Jacob Shoemaker definitely did seem to have ties to Sussex County. Either way, the question remains how William Taylor/Mary Swallow DNA might connect to our family tree - perhaps it's one of those things that "snuck" into our line somewhere else along the way....

Are we confused yet?  I think we need to find and evaluate more evidence before the jury can even begin deliberations!

Taylor Connections

The first question is obvious: Who Was Barbara Taylor?

In answer to this question, we know very little. We don't have a birth record nor even any census record that would help us estimate her birth year, although most genealogies estimate her birth year was around 1771. We do have a marriage record between Mr. Jacob Struble and Miss Barbary Taylor in Sussex, New Jersey on 28 Mar 1802. According to the estate division of Jacob's property in Newton, NJ after his death in Nov. 1835, his children were Abraham, Mary (Smith), Margaret (Dodder), Peter, Elizabeth, and William. It should also be noted that Jacob's estate included the dower for the widow, Barbara Struble. To my mind, this evidence indicates that Barbara was still alive in 1835, and thus did not die nor could she have been buried in Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio in 1818 as so many internet family trees indicate.  There is furthermore a deed in Sussex county in 1853 which involves the sheriff and a long list of Struble names, including that of Barbara Ann Struble. So theoretically, our Barbara was still alive as late as 1853!

So where to go when there's nowhere to go? As we already know from previous research, the census records from 1800-1820 in New Jersey were somehow destroyed and it's crazy how difficult that makes our research. That leaves marriage records, probate records, and deeds, all of which do indeed hold some excellent clues, which I will get to later. But the bigger clue, for me, came in understanding the big picture of the whole family. At least two of Barbara's sons and their families moved to Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio in the 1830s and several other Struble relations also ended up there, namely families of her husband's siblings (George Struble and Mary Struble Waldorf and possibly others).

When I had been considering that Barbara died in Brookfield, Ohio in 1818, and I realized that her children did not move there until the 1830s, I couldn't help but wonder WHY would she have been in Brookfield, Ohio, and the only answer I could come up with was that she went to visit one of her own Taylor relations. Now remember that I have since determined (at least in my mind) that Barbara did NOT die in Brookfield, Ohio in 1818, but the exercise of wondering why she might have gone to Ohio in 1818 lead to my best clue. It caused me to search for TAYLOR in Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio prior to 1830. And whose name appears prominently in the census' of Brookfield from 1820-1850? Somebody named Henry Taylor.

The next question is equally obvious: Who was Henry Taylor?

Well, according to his own Revolutionary pension affidavit recorded in Trumbull county, Ohio in 1832, Henry was born in Bucks county, PA, moved to Newton, Sussex, New Jersey when he was a boy with his father where he served during the Revolution. According to his affidavit, he later moved to Brookfield, Ohio around 1817 where he had lived since. It's hard not to notice the names of Struble and Waldorf (Waldruff) near that of Henry Taylor on the same census sheets of Brookfield. It is subsequently not hard to start wondering if Henry Taylor might not have some connection to my Barbara Taylor.

Note: It's worth noting there was another, younger, Henry Taylor in Trumbull County. He did not live in Brookfield, but in Warren twp. and later Bazetta twp. His father was Samuel and he came from Maryland - a blacksmith - who ended up living in Newton Falls. See Trumbull County History.

Getting back to our Taylor connections, it gets better still. It turns out that Henry's sister, Rebecca Drake of Washington county, PA, went to court in 1832 and recorded a deposition regarding her memories of living in Newton, Sussex, NJ, and her brother Henry Taylor serving with the NJ militia. So now we have to ask Who was Rebecca Drake?

I could not find Rebecca Drake in Washington county, PA, but in the 1830 census of Mt. Pleasant, Washington, PA, there was a Henry Drake with a 60-70-year-old female in his household, which could be about the right age for a sister of Henry? Unfortunately, I don't find Henry Drake in Washington county, Ohio in 1840, but curiously in West Bethlehem, Washington, PA, there was a Mary Drake (40-50) with 7 very little kids, and living next door to her is Margaret Taylor (30-40), who has three others in their 20s in her household. A connection? We'll have to hold that thought for now. Meanwhile, still looking for Henry Drake, who shows up in Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio in 1840? Henry Drake, age 43, born in New York (or New Jersey?), married with children, but also with an older female in his household. In the 1850 census, that older female, if she is the same person seen in 1840, is identified as Rebecca Fry! aka Rebecca Drake? aka Rebecca Taylor?

It's much too soon to reach for any definitive conclusions here. But these are all potentially viable clues in my opinion. Henry Taylor was born in Bucks county, PA and moved to Newton, Sussex, NJ which is exactly the place where Jacob Peter Struble lived with his wife, Barbara Taylor. We know that Henry had a sister named Rebecca, and that Henry ended up in Brookfield, Trumbull, Ohio, where several others in the immediate Struble family, including two of Barbara Taylor Struble's children, also moved. It seems at least possible there are some family connections going on here.

But who was Henry Taylor to our Barbara Taylor Struble? If Henry was born in 1758 and Barbara was born around 1770, then Henry was probably not Barbara's father, but perhaps he could have been her uncle. Stay tuned.

Comments are always welcome.

Introducing My Struble-Taylor Family

I descend from a bunch of Michiganders, and as it turns out, those who did not slip across from Canada were Germans who came by way of colonial Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This would be the case with my 3rd g-grandparents, Peter Dodder and Margaret Struble, who arrived in Michigan from New Jersey in the early 1830s. The Dodder line has been pretty thoroughly researched, and so I have turned my attention finally to the Struble line. The Struble's came from Odernheim in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany around 1748, and there are many, many of us Struble descendants scattered around the U.S. at this point. I'd love nothing more than to either find or pull together a definitive genealogy on this family line. In the meantime, this blog will certainly focus that effort on the family of my 4th g-grandparents, Jacob Peter Struble (abt 1770-1835) and his wife Barbara Taylor (dates unsure).

And to be clear, it's really the TAYLOR line that is my next longest-standing brick wall. Taylor is such a common name for that time period, and certainly nobody seems sure where this particular Taylor line came from, although I'm already beginning to develop some theories. Let's just say that the places under investigation include: Bucks and Washington counties, PA; Sussex and Hunterdon counties, NJ; and Trumbull county, OH.

This ought to be fun.