Answering Comments: Bartholomew Taylor and Nancy Dismukes

Quick Comparison of the two Bartholomews

I previously talked about my Bartholomew in multiple blog entries. These entries have sometimes attracted comments from other people looking for information on Bartholomew Taylor. Just not always mine. The most popular one being in Bartholomew Taylor: The Big One. In the comment section there are a few people inquiring about Bartholomew Taylor who married Nancy Dismuke in 1819.

My Bartholomew

I can say with certainty that my Bartholomew Taylor is not that Bartholomew. My Bartholomew was born in Somerset County, Maryland in 17551 and lived there until 1796 when he left. He eventually ended up in Bracken County, Kentucky.  I learned this information from Bartholomew himself. He gave a sworn statement to the court when he was applying for a Revolutionary War pension.

Pension declaration of Bartholomew Taylor

3rd where were you living when called into service, where have you lived since the revolutionary war, and where do you now live?

Answer, I lived in the county of Sommersett aforesaid when called in to the service and lived in said county until the year 1796 and until I removed to Bracken County Kentucky where I have lived ever since and where I now live.

– Revolutionary War Pension application of Bartholomew Taylor, 19 May 1834, Bracken County, Kentucky

So from here, we infer that my Bartholomew was in Maryland and then migrated to Kentucky. He does not mention Georgia anywhere in his comments about his history. There will be more on my Bartholomew in another entry!

The other Bartholomew

From what I can find, there isn’t a lot known about the other Bartholomew. If I’m honest it would take me months, probably longer to even familiarize myself with this group enough to really tackle the question of any connection between the two. I did some quick searches just to see if maybe there is a chance.

The Marriage of Bartholomew Taylor and Nancy Dismuke

Baldwin County, Georgia, Marriages, 1806-1925, Book A, 1816-1842: 21, Taylor-Dismuke, 1819; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 29 Oct 2023).

On Ancestry, I was able to find a marriage record between Batthew (Bartholomew) Taylor and Nancy Dismuke in 1819. Like most records of the time, parents information isn’t given here. This doesn’t mean no parent information will be available. Just that it isn’t on this particular page or record. There still might be land transactions, marriage bonds, or other court records that will give hints to who is connected with these two. If I were hunting this Bartholomew’s origins, my next step would be land and court records to establish a timeline around this first known event. To see what he was up to and see if there is any hints about where he came from. Are there other Taylors around? If he’s the only one, is there a family he seems to gravitate towards?

The Will of Bartholomew Taylor

“Georgia Probate Records, 1742-1990,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-893T-8472?cc=1999178&wc=9SBQ-4WG%3A267709901%2C267856801 : 19 October 2021), Meriwether > Wills 1831-1903 > image 257 of 705; citing various county, district, and probate courts.

Looking at the 1840 will on file in Meriwether County, Georgia, it seems the two Bartholomews are definitely in two different places at the same time. It is nice to see the children’s names laid out, this would help to establish a bigger timeline of the family to see if there are more connections to other Taylors. I would even venture far enough on this case to trace the friends and others mentioned in the will that aren’t Taylor or Dismuke. You never do know where those connections will come from.

All of this information doesn’t mean the two families aren’t connected at all. There just isn’t enough information on all the Taylors to know how far and wide they’ve spread right now. It’s been notoriously difficult to trace them. They do love to use the same names over and over again. 😂

I really hope those searching for answers about Bartholomew can find answers. We all have a bit of an uphill battle it seems like, no matter the Bartholomew.

Author’s Note: I am an out of practice, amateur genealogist. None of the thoughts above are meant to deal in certainties or conclude anything other then my rambling thoughts. In fact, I’m also an out of practice blog writer. So we are really dusting off the cobwebs lately!

  1. This sworn statement gives Bartholomew’s birth year as 1755, where it is mentioned other places as 1756. This is for another entry though. ↩︎

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Start (Week 01)

Happy New Year!

This new year, I’m hoping to be way more organized than last year. I didn’t do too bad in 2017, but I would really like to stay a little more focused when it comes to writing up my findings or even just sharing information with my family on social media. It feels like I’m sharing the same things all the time with no context.

One cool thing I’m trying to do this year is participating more in writing prompts. 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks sounds like a fun way to start. I’m sure I won’t be posting all 52 weeks, but as many as I can sounds perfect!

Week 01 Prompt: Start

The first week’s prompt has the vague meaning of Start. When I read this prompt, I immediately thought of my start in genealogy. I was doing an eighth-grade project. I don’t remember the specific project but my mother just happened to mention it to my Grandma Emogene. She was visiting us at the time. What I didn’t realize until that moment was that my Grandmother traveled with a copy of the family tree.

The blue binder is the tree and the white binder is corresponding pictures. I’ve talked about it previously in entries. Reminiscing about the Beginning in 2010, Me in 2011 and Fearless Females: Heirlooms in 2011. It’s possible I talked more about it. After blogging for almost 8 years now it’s hard to keep track.

I know that I’ve disproved much of that beginning paragraph, but the basis of the book, the actual family information is more accurate than I expected. It’s only after this recent Do-Over that I realized it. I hunted down the person titled “Me” in the right side picture. Though I’ve yet to research her.

It’s funny, I even remember a great moment with Grandma. I’ve thought about it a lot over the last year. When we were looking at this book, I saw the three sets of twins that Mollie Jane Webb had and I thought to myself that’s a lot of twins! Grandma looked right at me and said, “Well maybe you or your siblings will have twins someday.” It’s strange to say it but ever since that moment I knew twins were coming to us. I was probably the only person not shocked when my brother and sister-in-law announced they were having twins last year.

Not a bad start to my genealogy at all if you ask me. Thanks for giving me my passion for this Grandma!

Grandma and Grandpa Wayne
Grandma and Grandpa Wayne

Google Earth Adventure: Dillsboro

It is a snowy Saturday here in Southern Maryland. What better way to spend it then going on a Google Earth Adventure! Since I’ve been in a nostalgic mood, I thought I would take a trip to my Grandma’s house. I haven’t made the full journey there since September 2005. I’ve made the partial journey to different destinations, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her house.

Let’s see our route!

The Map

Wow, I didn’t realize that we spent 11 hours, probably longer, going to Grandma’s house. I don’t remember it, but my parents tell me that before it took longer because the Interstate didn’t go through where it does now. They had to go into Pennsylvania and come back down from Columbus.

We also split our trip into two days. My Aunt Melinda lives in Southern Ohio and it takes about 8 hours to get to her house. We would usually stop and spend the night with her and then head out in the morning. Of course a trip to Ohio isn’t a trip to Ohio without visiting two more Aunts in New Richmond, Ohio. After that, it is a short trip to Indiana.

I’m cheating and starting in Indiana!

The Lawrenceburg Exit
The Lawrenceburg Exit

There is something about that first exit off the Interstate. To get to Grandma’s we’d have to exit I-275. We are heading toward Lawrenceburg and Aurora, then onto Dillsboro. Even though it’s been over 10 years since I’ve taken it, this exit is as familiar as the trip I take to go grocery shopping today. There’s the relief of almost being to Grandma’s, and then the exhaustion when you realize you still have a half hour to go!

The Parking Lot
The Parking Lot

Is it cliche to say that this parking lot used to look so much bigger when I was younger! From the overhead view, there is a lot less visible from the street then there used to be. The parking lot was used for the customers on the Riverboat Casinos. From the looks of the street view, this parking lot is no longer in use.

Walmart – Oh the times I had in Walmart

Walmart

You can’t tell from the street, but up that hill and around those trees is a Walmart. It’s a pretty big one. It’s also full of so many funny memories for our family. There were times we had to stop and stretch, so we walked around Walmart. There were times that as a cranky, teenage girl I couldn’t take those jeans one more second. That meant a stop at Walmart for some sweatpants.

Most times this Walmart was our last stop to pick up things to take to Grandma’s house. It could be soda/pop, food, or books. Whatever you think you might have needed in the days before the internet and smartphones. Grandma lived pretty far out in the woods, and even the small town of Dillsboro was a bit of a hike to get things. The fun part about Walmart was it was Grandma’s favorite place. More than once when we were stopping to pick things up, we’d run right in to her and Wayne! 🙂

The last familiar sight before our turn!

Walmart

Nine miles from Walmart, you come across this! It’s that last familiar sight before you know you are almost there. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but we have a tradition in our family. On road trips, we designate landmarks to break up the trip. It’s not fun saying you will get there in 638 miles. Instead we’d say, oh Walmart is coming right up. Another favorite is, I know you’re tired but we’re almost to the silos! The silos meant we were about to make our turn into Dillsboro, Indiana!

Dillsboro!

Dillsboro

Oh boy, we finally made it to the Dillsboro turn! Just don’t blink because you will miss the turn. That happened to us more than once after a long trip. Actually, that’s not the turn we take. This is the one that SAYS Dillsboro, but this isn’t the one we take. We take the next, super secret unmarked turn!

The Secret Entrance

This is the entrance we always took into Dillsboro. This way we didn’t have to drive the whole length of the town. It’s a more straight forward route to Grandma’s house.

Genealogy Break: Since I’m a genealogist, I have to point out a few things before we turn into Dillsboro. You might be wondering how Grandma and Grandpa Wayne ended up all the way in Dillsboro (and you haven’t seen the trek to the house yet). Well, Wayne actually grew up in Dillsboro. It’s where his children grew up and live and probably where his parents grew up also. When he retired, he bought a house in his hometown. Dillsboro is also where Wayne is buried with his first wife. If you take a right turn instead of the left into Dillsboro, you’ll head straight into Oakdale Cemetery where Wayne is buried.

Town Square

Technically this isn’t a town square. It’s more of the intersection at the heart of Dillsboro. It’s important to know the other ways into to Dillsboro because when they have their carnival, this intersection is closed off and you can’t drive through at all! Now you know why I mentioned the other entrance. You always have to know these kinds of things, because this was before GPS and Google Maps!

Through the intersection, to the intersection? Huh?

Another Intersection
Another Intersection

When we come to this intersection, we have another choice to make. We can go right, or we can go left. If we go right, we can go to the IGA which is your closest source of groceries once you get to Grandma’s house. If you go left, we’re heading to Grandma’s but we still have a bit of a journey to go. Since this is my Google Earth Adventure and since there are no gas tanks to fill, I’m going to take a peak at the IGA!

The IGA
The IGA

Oh man, that used to feel a lot bigger to me! That seems to be a running theme as I get older. Everything used to be so much bigger. I didn’t think it was possible to miss a grocery store, but I sure do miss that IGA. There are so many memories of it. Probably not as many as Walmart, but plenty of them all the same.

Over the river and through the Woods, To Grandmother’s House we Go!

It was always a running joke in our family that we literally had to go over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house. Once you finally got to Dillsboro, you thought your journey was over. It wasn’t though, it was just getting started! You still had 5 miles of twisting, turning road to go! This is because technically, Grandma and Wayne lived in a little borough called Farmer’s Retreat. It doesn’t have a post office that I’m aware of, just a Lutheran church and a small park that was our last “landmark” on the trip to Grandma’s house.

I finally made it to Grandma’s house! There it is! Except the trees are blocking the front of the house. Lucky for me, Street View has some older photos of the house.

Here’s the little house I remember from my childhood. It didn’t have internet, cable TV or video games. Grandpa Wayne would wake up with the sun, and then wake you up right along with it. There would be blackberry picking if you were there at the right time of year. There was a back porch that everyone loved and remembers. I don’t just remember my Grandma and Grandpa Wayne here, I remember our whole family here. Cousins, Uncles, Aunts, and Great Aunts. To this day I can remember the exact layout of the house. I can remember the furniture. I also remember the Grandfather Clock that Wayne made for my Mom that sat in the family room. Well, it did until Wayne told Mom she was to take it or he was selling it!

It sure has been bittersweet visiting Grandma and Grandpa Wayne’s house after all these years. I wonder if a house will ever make me feel the same way again. Or will this house always be that house from my childhood, the one I remember with nostalgic fondness.

Wedding Wednesday: Wayne and Emogene

Today’s Wedding Wednesday comes with a reminder for myself! It is ALWAYS better to search out the original document that an index is referencing. Today’s wedding is my Grandma and Grandpa Wayne. My mother’s father died when she was just 17 years old, so I never got to meet him. From the time I was born to 2005, I had my Grandpa Wayne though. He was my Grandma’s second husband. They were married in 1982.

Grandma and Grandpa Wayne
Grandma and Grandpa Wayne in New Richmond, Ohio.

The Index

I’ve been working on my Genealogy Do-Over a lot this week. I was adding in the Ohio Marriage Index entry for Grandma and Grandpa Wayne when I had a thought. The Clermont County, Ohio marriage records are browse-able on FamilySearch.org! I could get an image copy of their marriage certificate. I went about adding the marriage index because I’m a better researcher now and that BSO couldn’t distract me from finishing my current task! I’m so proud of myself. 🙂

Ohio Marriage Index
Ohio Department of Health, “Ohio Marriage Index, 1970 and 1972-2007,” database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Jan 2017), entry for Emogene Mays and Harley W. Utter marriage (1982); citing Clermont County, vol. 11158, 24244.

Everything, looks great there! Now that I’d finished adding in the index, let me track down that marriage certificate on the other website.

The Marriage Certificate

Clermont County Certificate
Clermont County, Ohio, Marriage Records, 1910-2013, 81: 355, Utter-Mays, 11 May 1982; digital images, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 1 Jan 2017).

For the sake of full disclosure, the above record is cropped to just show the Marriage Certificate. The application and license are all shown on the same page. Though that probably comes into play in a minute, just bare with me! If you look at the Index, it states they were married on May 13th. The certificate says that they were married on May 11th and the record was filed and recorded on May 13th. I’m looking at a certificate, so to me, that holds more weight than an index that I can’t see where the information was even generated from.

I’m not one to just let it stand there though, so I brought up some marriage index entries and certificates for a few cousins and Aunts. They all show the same date on the index and certificate. That leads me to the conclusion that this was a typing/transcription error on the index.

One last observation

As I was entering the Marriage Certificate into Evidentia and my Genealogy program, I noticed that I have a page number, but no certificate number. That’s not some crazy thing though because these Clermont County certificates were bound from loose papers. I can tell from the full digital image.

Clermont County Marriage Book, v. 81
Clermont County Marriage Book, v. 81

The index however cites a volume number and certificate number. None of those numbers are visible in this digital collection. In fact the volume on the index is 11158 and the Clermont County book is volume 81. This shows me that the index was most likely created by a derivative copy sent to the state from the county. When you think about the further removed from an event a record gets, it really makes you think of all the ways it can go wrong!

From my thrown together graphic, I can see that I would be better getting the word of the officiant or someone at the wedding to know what date is right. (Yes, I’m still thinking it over even though I know they were married on May 11th. I like to think something over enough to get sick of it! haha)

Taylor-Webb Family Tree
p. 7-B, Taylor-Webb Family Tree, Nov 1980; privately held by Kathleen Moore, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Lexington Park, Maryland. 2001. This tree passed to me from Grandma Emogene Taylor.
Going back to the family tree Grandma carried around for over 30 years, and we have May 11, 1982! Man, this Genealogy Do-Over, Genealogy Proof Standards, and Evidentia are sure making me scrape together every bit of information!

Wedding Wednesday: Stanley and Emogene

Let me give you a small bit of background

There is a bit of a story behind this marriage record. This record has always been a bit of a dirty secret to me. Not because of the contents, or the events surrounding it. It was because it was a record so close to the current generations and I didn’t have it! It was this big blank spot in my documentation. I’ve always known the marriage date of my maternal grandparents. Not only do I have Grandma’s copy of the family tree from the 1980s, but it’s always been a known day since Grandma’s birthday was May 6th and her first wedding anniversary was May 3rd. We’d call up Grandma and say, “Happy Birthday and Anniversary!” Mostly because my Mom said she could never remember which was the day for either event! Oops! haha.

Taylor-Webb Family Tree
p. 7-B, Taylor-Webb Family Tree, Nov 1980; privately held by Kathleen Moore, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Lexington Park, Maryland. 2001. This tree passed to me from Grandma Emogene Taylor.
Looking at the family tree, you can see that it says Grandma married Grandpa Stanley 3 May 1947 but it doesn’t give a location. For years, I’ve been on the lookout for the record of their marriage. I’d asked all my aunts and my uncle if they knew where their parents were married. By the end of those conversations I had numerous options: Brown County Ohio, Clermont County Ohio, and Kentucky. My Mom (the second youngest) and Aunt Vera (the eldest) said Newport, Kentucky. My Aunt Molly (middle child) who spent the most time with Grandma said Clermont County, Ohio. Those are my three top sources of family memories so I was sunk! Who did I believe? Where do I look?

Where did you look?

The short answer is trust none of them, search all of them. The long answer is that Campbell County, Kentucky marriage records were the first I found browsable at FamilySearch.org: Campbell County Courthouse Records, Alexandria, KY. After going through those records page by page and not finding it, I was starting to think that Ohio was the place.

Luckily for me Brown and Clermont Counties are also on FamilySearch. After finding dozens of my family members in those counties, I was disappointed to not find Grandma and Grandpa Stanley’s marriage record. I wasn’t sure where to look next until I realized that Mom and Aunt Vera had both told me that Grandma was married in Newport, KY and all those marriages I saw in Kentucky were from Alexandria, Kentucky.

That’s right, Campbell County has TWO courthouses, both with different records. This news made me excited because there was still somewhere reasonable to search! I even started wondering how I would bribe my Aunt Molly to find that record for me. Luckily for me and Aunt Molly, FamilySearch put the other courthouse records online too! So, over 15 years after starting my genealogy research, I was finally able to see my Grandma and Grandpa Stanley’s marriage record! Though, that 15 years would have probably been shortened had I gone to Kentucky to search. Someone there surely would have said, “Hey! Have you checked the Newport Courthouse records? These are for the Alexandria Courthouse!”

Stanley Mays - Emogene Taylor marriage
Campbell County, Kentucky, marriage certificate no. p. 244 (1947), Mays-Taylor; digital image, FamilySearch, “Marriage Book 194,” (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 30 Sep 2016)

The Original Taylor Tree

The Original Taylor Tree
The Original Taylor Tree

I’ve come to the point in my Family File Cleanup where I have to make a decision. Whether or not to enter the descendant report for John Taylor into my family file. I have two Taylor descendant reports, the other being the one for Bartholomew Taylor (pictured above). It was easy to use the Bartholomew report because it was easily backed up with record proof. Not entirely but for the most part. Now that I’ve come to adding John and the earlier Taylors in, it gets more difficult.

The reason there is a decision at all is it gets harder to verify the families are correct because I’m venturing past the 1850 census now and into the 1700’s. So I’ll only have a number count for the children in the census and birth records are less frequent and less accessible. I have to decide whether to add these next few generations in or to leave them off. The pros to leaving them off would mean a complete fresh start with the early Taylor generations. The downside is that I’ve seen enough of the parish records over in Salisbury, Maryland to know that having a guideline would be a tremendous asset. You see, there are a lot of John, William and James Taylors in those records. I’m also finding in this cleanup that my original trees were a bit more accurate then I originally thought. Which is a good thing. There are inaccuracies but they are quickly rooted out.

Jane Menzies-Love
Jane Menzies-Love

What I think I’ll end up doing is adding them into the tree but not adding them to the website until I’ve got more than just my descendant report as a source. I definitely don’t want my website information to get out of hand or inaccurate. I’ve noticed while getting my tree synced on Ancestry.com that a lot of my pictures are being added to people’s family trees. I guess I hit the genealogy jackpot with that picture of Jane Menzies-Love because it is a popular one in member trees. The only problem is that no one is contacting me to compare information or trees. Since I know that my tree is being used as a resource, I don’t want to lead anyone in the wrong direction. There’s no reason that adding them to the website can’t wait until I’ve got more information in hand. I don’t like to take family lore completely out of the loop, but I’m definitely learning more about what can happen with internet genealogy.

So for now, I add the descendant reports as unsourced family records and then try and find the proof in the actual records next time I’m over on the Eastern Shore. I know I say I’m going to these places a lot and then never go, but it’s just the way it goes. I’ll get there someday and I just want to be ready for it when I do. My biggest flaw is getting flustered and overwhelmed when I walk into the libraries. Not anymore, I’ll have a clear, concise list and plan in hand the next time!

Kentucky Worked Super Fast!

On Monday morning April 16th, I walked two envelopes out to my mailbox. One was addressed to Kentucky, the other to New Jersey. My mail delivery doesn’t come until close to 4pm, so the envelopes sat in the mailbox for hours before they even left my street.

My Records Ordered List in My Genealogy Binder

Much to my surprise, when the mail ran on Saturday afternoon, my Grandmother’s birth certificate was in amongst the sales papers!

My Grandmother's Birth Certificate

I wasn’t sent a photocopy of the original, but I don’t think I was expecting that anyway. I’ve ordered death certificates from Kentucky before but not birth certificates. I don’t know if it’s a privacy concern, or just a computerized system that is super efficient. Either way, I received the certificate before the check even shows as being cashed in my bank account! That’s right, the check isn’t even shown in my bank account yet! I have to say a six day turn around isn’t something I ever expected!

Back to getting those crazy Taylors sorted out in my clean family file! I can see a finish line!

SNGF on Sunday: My Matrilineal Line

This week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun assignment is to list my matrilineal line.

  1. List your matrilineal line – your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!
  2. Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.
  3. Post your responses on your own blog post, in Comments to this blog post, or in a Status line on Facebook or in your Stream at Google Plus.
  4. If you have done this before, please do your father’s matrilineal line, or your grandfather’s matrilineal line, or your spouse’s matriliuneal line.
  5. Does this list spur you to find distant cousins that might share one of your matrilineal lines?
MY MATRILINEAL LINE
  • Me
  • Mom
  • Emogene Taylor (1929-2005) married to (1) Stanley Lee Mays (2) Harley Wayne Utter
  • Lula Applegate (1901-1978) married to Marshall Howard Taylor
  • Elizabeth West (1868-1938) married to (1) Unknown (2) James William Applegate
  • Zeroah Black (1837-?) married to Isaiah West

There is actually a bit of a controversy for Elizabeth West’s mother. There are a lot of online trees that show Isaiah West marrying Zerelda Jane McClanahan. There is even a Kentucky marriage record for this fact. However, all of Isaiah’s children list Zeroah Black as their mother on the death certificates. Also, the marriage record shows the marriage as happening 10 years before I estimated it from different sources. So for now I’m on hold with the West family until I can sit down and timeline the family so I can find out where I can attack it from next.

I haven’t had my DNA tested but I plan to once I finish the family file cleanup. I’m fascinated by the process and would love to see what kind of results I would get.

I’m always on the lookout for distant cousins! No extra spurring needed!

Preparation is Key

It’s been a rough few days here in Maryland. Well, it’s been a rough few days for me in Maryland would be the more accurate statement. Sunday wasn’t good for me at all. It probably had something to do with the time change. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. To start off my no good day, I broke my Kindle. Insert gasps here. I love my Kindle. It’s what I use at night to fall asleep. I’m able to turn the computers and TV off and just kind of get my mind to slow down. My mind is never idle, but the Kindle helps me to slow it down enough to sleep. Well, the problem is it was under my covers somewhere when I woke up Sunday morning and I heard a definitive crack. On the outside it looks fine, well if this is what you call fine.

Yeah, that’s not going to work. So I’m going to have to call Amazon and see if they can fix it for me. Hopefully they can! It does have a limited one year warranty so we’ll see. Then as if I wasn’t genius enough, I tripped going up some stairs. I tell ya, when it rains it pours. So yesterday I took a mental health day away from the computer. It was wonderful, but now I feel like I don’t have enough time in the world to catch up.

I did want to talk today about my first trip to a repository though! It was many years ago now though, but I want to add to the consensus that you need to make an effort to get out to your local resources for some of your research. Mine is a little tough (As I’m sure many can relate to), almost all my research has to be done in other states. States that are at least 8 hours away by my count. The only smidge of my family that I can do some local research on is the Taylor family. I was gobsmacked when I was looking through the Taylor tree my grandma gave me, and I saw that the first Taylors we knew of were from Somerset County, Maryland!

There is still a tiny little problem though. It’s called the Chesapeake Bay. In order to go to the area the Taylors were from, I have to go all the way up to Annapolis, cross the Bay Bridge (EEK! I hate that bridge), and then go back down the other side of Maryland. Not impossible, but still quite a trip to make in one day.

My first visit to the Edward H Nabb Research Center was awesome! The only problem was I wasn’t quite prepared for what I was getting. I don’t even think I had a copy of my tree with me. In fact, this was before I even had a laptop I think. That’s quite a time, so between 2001 and 2005? I can’t be sure. The staff was very helpful anyway. The only problem they said was, “Searching for Taylors in this area is like searching for John Smith in Virginia.” Oh dear. Boy were they right. The first trip was an eye opener for me.

There are even student research papers on the Taylor family! I should mention that the Nabb Research Center is located on the campus of Salisbury University. So much of the staff are students/employees from the college.

This is the microfilm that I think I looked at on my first visit. It was literally littered with Taylors. I want to go back again and really go through. I did go back once with laptop in hand but I ended up getting ill all of a sudden and had to trek the 3-4 hours home. Luckily my Mom and sister were with me! Though my sister says she’s never driving me or my Mom over any of those big bridges again. To say we had anxiety attacks would be an understatement.

My point is, this local resource has entire sections of their library dedicated to the early settlers of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It just so happens, my family is one of these early settlers. In addition to the records though, they have people that are familiar with these families. Even though they aren’t related to these families, they’ve got the experience of being there for a lot of the research that goes on in the center. For example, the man who helped me didn’t research Taylors himself, but in doing his own research he knew to tell me where my Taylors were and how prominent they were. He was able to guide me very well for a girl who showed up without any idea of what she was doing. The second trip would have been much better if I hadn’t gotten sick and had to leave almost as soon as we got there. I’m pretty sure I had a laptop with me that time and a game plan.

So there’s my two cents on local repositories. Also, is there anyone who’d like to volunteer to drive a 27 year old and her mother across a bridge when they’re shrieking in the backseat? No takers? Wait, I see a Library of Congress number. There are no bridges to get to the Library of Congress! The student research paper doesn’t have one though, so I guess it’s the bridge for us!

Fearless Females: Heirlooms

March 6 — Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.)

I took a few days off, and since I don’t have a recipe to share for March 7th, I decided to use the March 6th prompt. The heirloom that comes to my mind is one I’ve talked about before.

“The tree”. The one that started it all. This is what my Grandma brought with her on that fateful visit when I was in the eighth grade. The blue is the family tree and the other binder is the picture companion to the family tree.

The first page in the binder shows the numbers 3-2 written above the couple.

Then you line that up with the 3-2 in the family tree. Now there is a bit of confusion because the Webb and Taylor sections both have 3-2s. I don’t know how that happened but the Webb line fizzles out very quickly in the tree. It’s very obvious this tree was done from the Taylor perspective. I don’t know if it’s legible from the picture but Mollie Jane Webb married George Thomas Taylor. So that’s where the lines connect. Not much is known beyond Mollie’s generation on the Webb side. After consulting the tree, the couple in the first picture is Marshall Howard Taylor and his wife Lula Applegate. I faintly remember Grandma telling me that this picture might have been from their wedding day.

The picture book goes all the way through the descendants. My grandmother gathered pictures of as many Taylors as possible. Here’s the page dedicated to my Mom and her kids. That’s me in the red shirt there at the bottom. My family is used to me posting their pictures all over creation. For the sake of my other family members privacy, I won’t show you the others.

What’s also great is there are little mementos among the pages. There are articles of newspapers, obituaries, birth announcements.

I love both books. I’m so happy that they eventually found their way to me. I like to take them out and look through the pictures every once and awhile. It’s fun to match the names and faces.