Key Dates in Taylor Genealogy

Hi,

We are going to have several posts authored by project co-administrator Ralph Taylor, with input from project head, Dr. Leigh Taylor, and from me. We start with some basics that impact every Taylor, key dates.

1066 AD: Norman Conquest of England , bringing the word “tailleur” for a maker of clothing into the language. One Taylor line claims descent from an officer in the victorious army.

1350 AD: The approximate time surnames came into general usage. Most Taylor families first used the surname then; before that, it was “Robert, the town tailor”, not “Robert Taylor”. (Similarly with Carpenter, Cooper, Plummer & Smith.)

1607 AD: Founding of Jamestown , Virginia , the first permanent English settlement on the American continent. This event began English Taylor migration to what would become the United States of America .

1700 AD: The beginning of Scots Irish migration to America , bringing Taylor families from Ireland , particularly the Ulster & Armargh provinces. Taylor descendants hail from the Cameron clan.

1709 AD: Beginning of Palatine migration to America . Some Germanic Schneider families anglicized their name to its English equivalent, Taylor .

1763 AD: France ceded most of its North American territory to Great Britain , opening the way for British migration to Canada . We begin to see Taylor spelled as pronounced in various areas of the county: Tayler, Tyler, Tolliver, Taliaferro (Italian), Tailor, Taler, etc.

1788 AD: Britain established its first settlement in New South Wales , Australia . Many of the early settlers were convicts from England .

Taylors in the USA

If you are interested enough in Taylors to be reading this blog, you’ve probably already searched for Taylors in public records. Not an easy task, is it? Then, if you combine the Taylor surname with a common first name, say John or James, you are in real trouble. You can find many of them even in the same counties you know your ancestor of the same name lived…

But here’s proof of how many Taylors are out there. This information was obtained from Ancestory.com’s census records and then corrected, because a number of censuses underreported in some years. Thanks to Ralph Taylor and Josh Taylor, project administrators who did the hard work.

Consider these numbers:

US Federal Census Data for Taylor, 1790-1930
From search on "taylor", exact match, exact spelling at Ancestry.com US federal census indices, with corrections for underreporting in some jurisdictions.

1790 9,710
1800 13,300
1810 17,940
1820 23,600
1830 33,650
1840 58,560
1850 67,430
1860 85,620
1870 133,270
1880 171,360
1890 211,160
1900 248,515
1910 283,066
1920 313,925
1930 341,174

So, how do you find the right Taylor ancestors? Glad you asked that. Y-chromosome DNA is one way to go about locating the right Taylor family. Go to www.familytreedna.com and look for the Taylor surname project. We are now at 277 members and just beginning to fully elucidate the Taylor gene pool.

And, yes, there are other ways to find your correct Taylor ancestors. Go for the paper trail with public and private documents. And, realistically, you need to do both. The combination of biological proof and a paper trail will make definite proof that you are investigating the right ancestors.

Good luck with your genealogy research! Remember to get back to the Taylor surname project when you have updated your Taylor family tree.

Lalia