Mistaken Identity

Today, while sorting through some of my family pictures to find one I wanted to send to my cousin, I noticed something odd in a photograph that had been labelled "Catherine Hogan & John"...namely, that the woman in the picture didn't actually look much like my great-grandmother. I had scanned and filed the picture last November, and must have been in a hurry when I did so, because I had never noticed this before. I had another picture of Grandma Hogan from a similar time period, and a comparison confirmed what I thought - this woman was not Grandma Hogan. Just to be sure, I had my dad take another look at the two pictures, and he agreed - the woman in question was definitely not his grandmother.

It was then that I actually looked at what she was wearing. The woman in this picture was wearing a uniform which I quickly recognized from my research into another member of the family - a World War I Navy uniform. Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed that I just glanced over this picture and didn't notice the uniform earlier. There's really only one woman this could be - Marie Hogan, sister of my great-grandfather Joseph Hogan, who served in the Navy in World War I as a part of the first group of women ever allowed to legally enlist in non-nurse roles.

So, here's the picture with the correct information:

Marie Catherine Hogan with her nephew, John Hogan, circa 1918/19; probably Bronx, New York.

Oh Canada...

As many of you know, our Lacey family has been in Salinas since, well, before there was a place called Salinas. According the information I have, my 3rd great-grandfather, Joseph Vanderlip Lacey, first came to California in the late 1850s with his family - his wife, Isabella; children, Mary and James; father, Isaac; mother, Maria; brother, Frederick; and two sisters, Arabella (in the photo on the right) and Augusta.

We have a letter written by my great-great uncle, Garth Lacey, which indicates that he believed the family had come from St. Catharine's, Ontario, Canada. Joseph was Garth's grandfather, putting him much closer to the events and much more likely to know at least some of the details of this family.

But none of this tells us how the Lacey family ended up in Canada, what they were doing there, or how long they had been there. In the mid-1800s, it was not uncommon for immigrants to come first to Canada, stay for a few years, then immigrate to the United States. Was this what our Laceys had done?

A look at the 1860 U.S. census was the first clue to our Canadian heritage. In it, the entire Lacey family mentioned above is living in Monterey, California. Every member of the family, with the sole exception of Joseph's wife, is listed as having been born in Canada. If this is true, three generations born in the country would certainly indicate more than a short stopover on the immigration path.

Several months ago, I went with my aunt and cousin to the Monterey County Historical Society to look for information on the Lacey family in their archives. Although we didn't find records on our direct ancestors, we did find an original 1861 marriage certificate - seen on the left - for Augusta Lacey (Joseph's sister). According to this document, Augusta was "a native of Thorold Upper Canada."

This was good information, and quite exciting to have found. I rushed home that evening, dutifully plugged it into our family tree and then proceeded to promptly do nothing with it. Great going, Colleen.

About four weeks ago, I dusted off this little fact and, just to see what I'd get, googled Thorold. It turns out to be a small town in Ontario, located very close to St. Catharine's. This was looking quite promising as the Canadian home of the Lacey family. Adding the name Lacey to my search turned out to be even more fruitful, with this post from a genealogy forum coming up as the first result. Voila! A Lacey family from Thorold!

But were these our Laceys? The patriarch on this family tree, George Lacey, did have a son named Isaac. The author of the tree does not have a birth date for Isaac Lacey (our Isaac was born about 1804), but does have a marriage date of 1826, to a woman named Maria Larroway (our Isaac's wife was named Maria). So far, so good...but that was all he had on Isaac.

Still, Thorold had only a few hundred residents in the first half of the 1800s. The odds of there being two Isaac Laceys born about the same time, in the same town, who both married a woman named Maria...well, those odds seem pretty small. To confirm, though, I decided to do a bit more research on the rest of the extended Lacey family of Thorold.

In the 1897 "Jubilee History of Thorold, Township and Town," the Lacey family appears several times. Among the information in this book is the following brief mention of Isaac Lacey's sister, Abigail:

"Abigail S. Lacey, wife of Robert W. Hagar and daughter of George and Elizabeth Lacey, was born July 28th, 1801 on lot 117, Thorold Township, and died at Salinas City, California, January 16th, 1884."

Now I was getting excited...what were the odds, even if there I accepted that there were two Isaac Laceys, that the sister of one would end up in the small pioneer town in California as the family of the other Isaac Lacey?

Robert Hagar turns out to have been Abigail Lacey's first husband; her second husband's name was Collins Matthews. With this information, I went back the 1860 U.S. census records. And what do you know...guess who I found living right next to Isaac Lacey in Monterey in 1860? Yup...Abigail Matthews!

So there you have it...our Isaac Lacey appears to be the son of George Lacey and Elizabeth Lee, of Thorold, Ontario, Canada. And before Thorold? Well, it appears that George and Elizabeth immigrated to Canada from New Jersey around the turn of the nineteenth century. Before that? Well, that answer's probably another few rounds of research away...

Assumptions...you know what they say...

It has been quite a while since I updated with the progress I've been making - so long, in fact, that I'm not quite sure what to share first! Let's start with a discovery I made just this past week...

I've talked from time to time about how valuable the information received from relatives is, but how everything must be verified - although it is tempting to believe that our family stories are always true, information changes over the years as stories are told again and again. It's a bit like a game of telephone, and when putting together a genealogy, it is the researcher's responsibility to document and verify everything. You know what they say about assumptions!

As many of you know, I have been actively trying to locate my grandparents' cousins (or their children, in the case of those cousins no longer alive). An important first step has been tracing the lives of their parents, the aunts and uncles of my grandparents.

Original caption: "Uncle Otto & me"

My great-grandmother, Loretta Bauer Taylor, was one of three sisters who lived to adulthood (a fourth sister died at age six, and an unknown sibling died in infancy). Tracing her sisters has been difficult, in part due to the fact that, for reasons unknown, by the time my grandparents were married in 1948, my great-grandmother had very little contact with her mother or her sisters. My only source for information on these two women was my grandmother, who knew only a bit about them.

The older of the two sisters, Evelyn Bauer, was married to a man by the name of Otto Wiese (seen in the image at the right, with my grandfather, about 1925/6). I was able to locate Evelyn's death records fairly easily, but I seemed to hit a bit of a brick wall when looking for information on Otto. This past Thanksgiving, when telling me what she knew about the Bauer sisters, Grannie told me she'd never met Otto and that she thought Evelyn and her husband had divorced because she was, in Grannie's words, "a career woman." Still, a divorce didn't explain why I could find no records of Otto past the 1930 census, when he was living with Evelyn and their two daughters, Virginia and Patricia.

This past week, I was browsing through a compilation of death notices from the New York Times from the first half of the twentieth century. On a whim, I typed in Otto's name, and was quite surprised to see the following record first on the results list, from August 1934:

"WIESE - Otto A. Guiding Star Lodge, No. 585, F. and A. M. Brethren: Sorrowful announcement is made of the passing of Brother Otto A. Wiese. Masonic Funeral services at his late residence, 1,052 Rhinelander Av., Friday evening at 8:30 o'clock."

Our Otto's full name was Otto Adolph Wiese. Could this be the same Otto Wiese? And if it was, did this mean he and Evelyn had divorced between the 1930 census and his death in 1934? Or had they not actually been divorced at all? The next record in the results list was another announcement of Otto Wiese's death:

"WIESE - Otto A., Aug 7, 1934, beloved husband of Evelyn M. Wiese and father of Virginia and Patricia. Masonic service Guiding Star Lodge, No. 585, F. and A. M., Friday, 8:30 P.M., at his late residence, 1,052 Rhinelander Av., Bronx."

If there was any doubt that this Otto was Evelyn's husband, that announcement removed it. Evelyn and Otto were, in fact, not divorced at all. Grannie never met Uncle Otto, not because of a divorce, but because he had died 14 years before she married into the family. Whether someone else in the family was divorced and she got them mixed up, or she simply made an assumption based on his absence, I really can't say.

At the last census before Otto's death, Evelyn was not working. At this point, I think it is safe to say that Evelyn was not a career woman by choice, but by necessity. At the time of Otto's death, her children were 10 and 6, and as a construction worker, Otto can't have left a great deal for them to live on.

Evelyn Wiese outlived her husband by nearly 60 years, but never remarried. She died in 1992, at the age of 95. I am still trying to trace her children, Virginia and Patricia, but it is difficult without exact birthdates or any indication of what their married names might be.

Have You Seen Me?

Stop the presses! We interrupt this broadcast for a breaking news alert...our cousins are missing!

Sorry, couldn't resist the urge to be silly...you all know how I can be. In all seriousness, though, while many of our cousins may not be missing in the grand scheme of life, they are missing to me.

I'm talking about the cousins of my grandparents' generation. These are people who may be able to provide a vital link to our family's story. You never know which one might have an old family bible or pictures of ancestors we've never had a chance to see, or might have heard stories that would otherwise be lost.

My goal for 2011 is to locate at least one of these cousins each month. It won't be as easy as it might seem - many records for these cousins are not yet old enough to be considered public domain, so tracing them through marriages and moves can be tricky.

That, my dear family, is where you come in! Think of this post as one of those "Have You Seen Me?" ads from the back of the milk carton. Anything at all that you may know about these cousins could be helpful - a spouse's name, where you remember them living, anything at all.

We'll do my father's side of the family (that would be the Taylor, Bauer, Hogan and Fagan cousins) in this post, and then we'll tackle my mother's side of the family in another post. On the Taylor/Bauer side, I believe I have at least the names of all the cousins. On the Hogan/Fagan side, however, I may need some help uncovering even the names of some of the cousins!

First up, the Taylor & Bauer cousins...

Children of Florence Taylor:

• Corinne Poggi - born 1922; I believe she died in the early 1940s

Children of Charles Taylor:

• Warren Taylor - born 1934
• Diane Taylor - born 1938; died 2008
• Douglas Taylor - born 1943
• Judith Taylor - born 1946; married Randal Hearn in 1965

Children of Edward Taylor:

• Joan Taylor - born 1930
• Geraldine Taylor - born 1935

Children of Robert Taylor:

• Virginia Taylor - born 1947
• Maureen Taylor - born 1949

Children of Evelyn Bauer:

• Virginia Wiese - born 1924
• Patricia Wiese - born 1928

Children of Theresa Bauer:

• James Costelloe - born 1922; died 2008
• Margaret "Peg" Costelloe - born 1926
• Loretta Costelloe - born 1928

And now, the Hogan & Fagan cousins:

Children of Harry Hogan:

• Mary Katherine Hogan - born 1917
• Robert Hogan - born 1926

Children of Marie Hogan:

• Unknown. Aunt Marie married William Adams, but I do not know the names/ages of any children

Children of Thomas Fagan:

• Mary Fagan - born 1912; died 2004
• Thomas Fagan - born 1916

Children of Julia Fagan:

• Charles Rowe - born 1901
• Edward Rowe - born 1908
• Malcolm Rowe - born 1909

Children of Edward Fagan:

• Kathleen Fagan - born 1925
• Edward Fagan - born 1927
• John Fagan - born 1933

Thanks, everyone!!

Those Who Served...

I realize I haven't had many posts lately - I have been researching, but I've been neglecting updating you all. Sorry!!

Today, in honor of Veteran's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to write a little bit about the veterans in our family tree.

On my mother's side:

My grandfather, Robert Chapman, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. His brother, Frederick William, served in the U.S. Army. Below is a photograph of the Chapman family during World War II. From left to right, Robert B. Chapman; Frederick W. Chapman, Sr; Bess Chapman; Elizabeth Chapman; Frederick W. Chapman, Jr.

Further back, in a different line of the family, my great-grandfather, Albert Dean Lacey, served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Dean reached the rank of First Lieutenant in the Army, although not much is known about his service. If it hadn't been for a brief line in his marriage announcement, noting that he had recently returned from the Army, I never would have known he served at all. I am submitting a request to the military personnel records office to get copies of Dean's service records and learn a bit more about his service.

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On my father's side, the history of service starts with our current generation and goes back about as far as you can in American military history.

My cousin Jeff serves today in the National Guard, and his father, Ken, served twenty-six years in the U.S. Air Force.

My grandmother's brother, Joseph Hogan, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. My grandfather, Robert Charles Taylor, Sr, served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Coast Guard, while his older brother, Frank, served in the U.S. Army. At my grandmother's house, I remember seeing a great picture of the two brothers in their Army uniforms. Unfortunately, I don't have a scan of that picture, but below is a picture of my grandfather when he was in the Coast Guard:

Further back, my great-grandfather, Frank Orson Joseph Taylor, served in the U.S. Navy during World War I. Like my great-grandfather on my mother's side, I don't know much about Grandpa Taylor's service, but I have requested his service records from the military personnel office.

Frank's younger brother (my great-great uncle), Robert Thomas Taylor, served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and Frank's sister-in-law, my great-great aunt, Theresa Bauer, was married to U.S. Army Pvt. James Costelloe, a veteran of World War I. Pictures of James & Theresa's headstones at Long Island National Cemetery can be seen by clicking here.

Moving even further back, my 3rd great-grandfather, Andrew Orson Taylor, served in the Union Army (NY 6th Regiment, Company G) during the Civil War. Andrew served as the company drummer, then fifer, and finally served as a private. At the Battle of Irish Bend (Louisiana) in April 1863, Andrew was hit in the leg with a musket ball, stabbed in the arm with a sabre, and then, while he was on the ground after the sabre wound, he was trampled by a cavalry horse. Fortunately, Andrew survived and went home to New York City, but he would suffer disability from those injuries on and off for the rest of his life.

Tracing the family back even further through Andrew Orson's mother, Marcia Merrill, takes me to the earliest veteran that I know of in my family tree - my 6th great-grandfather, Titus Merrill, who served with the Connecticut 8th Regiment during the Revolutionary War.

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So there you have it - a lengthy history of service to our country on our family tree, people who sacrificed to give us the freedoms we enjoy today. God bless our veterans!

The "French" Connection...

We're French...or German...or maybe both? Last night, I was writing up the following (somewhat long) recap of one of my maternal line's to send to a cousin, and thought I'd share it here in case anyone else is interested...

Until recently, my knowledge of the Lorraine region of France was pretty much limited to the quiche of the same name. As it turns out, though, Lorraine is the ancestral home of one branch of my family, so I figured it wouldn't do to have that be all I knew about the region. Over the centuries, Lorraine has passed back and forth between French and German control several times, and historically, the majority of the region's inhabitants, at least from what I've read, have been German. So although we have roots in France, our actual lineage may be more German than French.

Johann Jacob Dispionit was born in Lorraine at some point around the year 1715. (Side note: the family name changes drastically over the years, appearing in records as everything from 'Dispionit' to 'Dispanet,' 'Dispenney,' and 'Dispennet.') In 1739, Johann arrived in Philadelphia aboard the 'London,' a small merchant vessel. Although very little is known about Johann's wife, several stories circulate among descendant families of an ancestor by the name of Jacob Dispennet who fell in love with a fellow immigrant girl aboard his ship and married her shortly after their arrival. Given that Johann's first child was born at some point around 1740, this would certainly make sense, although it is unlikely that it can ever be verified completely.

Johann settled in Frederick County, where he and his wife built a farm and had six children together. In approximately 1756, the family's farm was the target of an Indian raid. Tragically, in the ensuing massacre, Johann, his wife, and three of their children were killed. The older three sons, none older than fifteen or sixteen at the time, reportedly hid in barrels of grain in the family barn to survive.

These three surviving Dispennett children - Christopher, John and Joseph - all remained in Virginia after the deaths of their parents and siblings. The exact dates of birth for the three sons are unknown, but all were born in the early 1740s. Christopher and his wife, Mary Ann, settled in Shenandoah County, Virginia, and John remained in Frederick County. Although I believe both had children, I have not yet found records of them. Joseph Dispennett settled in Rockingham County, Virginia, where he had at least three sons and four daughters with an unknown first wife (given the eight year gap between the youngest and next youngest known children, it is likely that there were one or more children who died in infancy or early childhood). At this point, I don't yet know the name or any history on this first wife. In 1791, Joseph married a woman by the name of Margaret Rust, who he remained married to until his death in 1797.

It is believed, based on stories passed among older generations of Joseph's descendants, that he fought in the American Revolution (on the side of the Americans, of course). Unfortunately, locating documentation to back this story up may prove difficult, as the vast majority of pre-Civil War records for Rockingham County were destroyed in fires set by the Union Army during the Civil War (damn Yankees!).

Joseph's fourth child, a son by the name of Adam, was born in approximately 1770 in Rockingham County. In 1796, he married Eve Hester in nearby Hardy County - then a part of Virginia, but today part of West Virginia. The couple lived in Rockingham County, where Adam had acquired quite a bit of farm land. In 1799, Eve died after giving birth to their first and only child, a daughter, Catherine.

In 1801, 31 year old Adam married 20 year old Mary Magdalene May, the third of fourteen children of George and Martha May, also of Rockingham County, Virginia. Adam and Mary settled after their marriage on Adam's land in Rockingham County, where they had three children - John (b. 1802), Jacob (b. 1804) and Elizabeth (b. 1806). In 1807, for reasons unknown, Adam and Mary moved their growing family west, settling in what was then Fairfield County, Ohio (this area later became part of Licking County).

In Ohio, Adam's family continued to expand, and he and Mary had nine more children - Sarah (b. 1808), Joseph (b. 1809), Margaret (b. 1811), David (b. 1813), Mary Polly (b. 1815), Abraham (b. 1817), Rachel (b. 1819), Noah (b. 1823) and George (b. 1827). Adam and Mary purchased a large track of land bordering Hog Run Creek, just north of the town of Linnville, on which they farmed and raised their family. Adam, who died in 1835, and Mary, who died in 1846, are both buried on this family farm.

Sarah Dispennett, the first of Adam and Mary's children to be born in Ohio, married a Licking County farmer by the name of William Burnside (b. 1808), in the late 1820s or very early 1830s. William and Sarah had eight children - Joseph (b. 1831), Mary (b. 1832), Susannah (b. 1836), Margaret (b. 1837) William (b. 1838), Rachel (b. 1841), Hanna (b. 1842) and Abram (b. 1846). The majority of the family remained in Licking County, many living on neighboring farms. William Burnside died in 1876, and Sarah Dispennett Burnside in 1883. Both are buried at Pataskala Cemetery in Pataskala, Ohio.

Joseph Burnside, the eldest child of William and Sarah, became a retail druggist (what we would today call a pharmacist, but which in the 1800s warranted the designation of 'Dr.') in Pataskala. In the mid-1850s Joseph married another Licking County native, Elizabeth M. Drake. The couple had seven children, although only four lived to adulthood. For one daughter, Mary Susannah Burnside, I have only a photograph of a gravestone, with no dates inscribed on it, as proof of her existence. Gravestones without dates, usually located next to the parents' stones, almost always indicate a child that was stillborn or died very early in infancy. A son, William S Burnside (b. 1856), lived less than a year, and another daughter, Eva (b. 1859), died at some point in the 1860s. Joseph Burnside died in 1881, and his wife Elizabeth died in 1922. Both are buried in Pataskala Cemetery.

The four surviving children of Joseph and Elizabeth Burnside were: Charles Fremont (b. 1858), Minnie Florence (b. 1866), Lulu Dell (b. 1868) and Margaret Elizabeth (b. 1874). Charles Fremont Burnside married Leah MacIvor in Shoshone, Idaho, in 1885, and the couple had two children - Donald Drake (b. 1886) and Bessie Mae (b. 1889). Charles died in Philadelphia in 1928 and is buried in Union Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.

Minnie Florence Burnside married George Michael Schwartz (marriage date unknown), and this couple had five children - Alvinia Marie (b. 1889), George Burnside (b. 1893), Robert Michael (b. 1894), and twins Fred Henry and Frank Rankin (b. 1897). Minnie died in Columbus, Ohio in 1919, and is buried in Green Lawn Cemetery

Lulu Dell Burnside married Samuel Cox Buckingham in 1891. I have found no record of any children from this couple. Lulu died in Columbus in 1931 and is buried in Union Cemetery.

Margaret "Maggie" Elizabeth Burnside married Roy Hildebrand in 1901, and this couple had one child - a daughter, Margaret Elizabeth (b. 1904). Maggie Hildebrand died in 1944 in Columbus, and is buried in the same plot as her brother, Charles, in Union Cemetery.

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Did you follow that? I know, it's long. That's what happens when everyone has eight or nine or more children!

Who Are We? No, Really...

For as long as I can remember, I have heard the story of our Taylor ancestors - that way back when, there was a Native American (Iroquois) ancestor who was given or forced to take a last name, a completely foreign concept to those on the reservation. So, all those who were registered would take (or be given, depending on who you get the story from) the last name of the current president - in our case, Zachary Taylor - and thus comes the Taylor last name.

It's a nice story. Problem is, I'm not entirely certain that it's a true story.

I have our Taylor family back to Andrew Orson Taylor, born in 1844 in the state of Ohio, died in 1917 in New York City. According to a log of family information kept by Andrew's son, Frank Werner Taylor (b. 1878, d. 1938), Andrew's wife was a German woman by the name of Mary Helen Greenwald, and Andrew's father was Andrew Snow Taylor. Snow sounds Native American enough, right? So far, so good...

The first place I looked for info when I started looking at Andrew Orson Taylor was the U.S. Census. In 1880, I find Andrew living in New York City, married to a 'Mary Taylor', with three children - a perfect match to what I knew of Andrew from Frank's records. Under the column 'Birthplace of Father,' however, we find 'England' - same with 'Birthplace of Mother'. Well, the census isn't always completely accurate - it's self-reported information, and people do lie. I've got relatives whose ages vary as much as 10 years from decade to decade. Often discrepancies will work themselves out from record to record. So, off to the next census...

I haven't yet found Andrew Orson Taylor in the 1900 census - I'm still looking, though, and I'm sure he's there somewhere. After all, it's not as though he was abducted by aliens! In 1910, he is living in New York City, alone, and listed as a widower. 'Birthplace of Father' is listed as 'at sea' and 'Birthplace of Mother' is 'New York'. Not so much of a help there, Andrew. At least 'at sea' might lend itself a little more to the Native American lore than 'England'.

Moving backward, I then tried to find Andrew in the 1870 census, before his 1875 marriage. I knew he was probably in New York, as that is where his Civil War records place him at the end of the war. In New York City in 1870, I was able to locate 'Andrew O Taylor' living in New York City, born 1844 in Ohio, with his occupation listed as 'musician' - and our Andrew Taylor served as a musician in the Civil War, which only increased my confidence that we are looking at the correct Andrew Taylor. Only one problem - this 'Andrew Taylor' lists his father as being 'of foreign birth'. Strike another nail into the old family lore...

I then tried to trace back a step further by location the 1860 and 1850 census records for Andrew Orson Taylor. Unfortunately, knowing only his date of birth and father's name, I hit a bit of a brick wall, with two or three records for each of the two years that could match our Andrew Taylor.

Searching through transcriptions of microfilmed marriage records for New York state a few days ago, I came across a gem of a record - a transcription of key data from the marriage certificate of one Andrew Orson Taylor and Mary Helen Greenwald. Bingo! Although I still would like to get a copy of the original record, this transcription filled in a number of important gaps as we climb our Taylor family tree - it provided the names of Mary Helen's parents (I previously only had her mother's name), and most importantly for today's discussion, it provided the names of Andrew Orson's parents - Andrew S. Taylor and Marcia Merrill.

Thinking back to the 1850 census records I had been looking at, I realized that only one could match this new information - an 1850 record for an Andrew O Taylor, living in New York City, born about 1845, living with an Andrew J Taylor and a Martha Taylor. Given the fact that 'Martha' can sound quite a bit like 'Marcia' and many of these older census records were recorded by workers going door to door and talking to residents, it is reasonable to think this is our Andrew Orson Taylor. He is also listed as living with a brother, Charles, and also a Joseph A Taylor, too old to be a brother, but perhaps the right age to be an uncle.

Andrew O is listed as being born in New York - but this is a very common mistake in census records, that someone is listed as being born in their current place of residence instead of their actual birthplace. So, requires extra checking but doesn't automatically discount the record. Andrew J Taylor, however, is listed as being born in England, and his wife, in Connecticut. Uh oh...

Moving to the 1860 census, Andrew J Taylor becomes Andrew H Taylor - his occupation remains the same, however, and he is listed as living with two sons, Andrew N and Charles N. Their ages are the same as the Andrew and Charles of the 1850 census, and the birthplace of Andrew N (who is actually Andrew Orson) is now listed as Ohio. So we are in fact most likely looking at the correct Andrew Taylors. Andrew Orson's mother, Marcia/Martha, most likely passed away at some point between 1850 and 1860. There are also two other Taylors in the household at this point - a Sarah Taylor, age 27, and a Valentine Taylor, age 3, but who I think they are may need to be its own post, as it would be too much a digression even for me!

Back to the point at hand...in the 1860 census, Andrew Snow Taylor's place of birth is listed as 'Guernsey'. Now, 'Guernsey' could refer to several places - the most likely matches, given what we know off of the other records, would be either Guernsey County, Ohio, or the Isle of Guernsey (aka the Bailiwick of Guernsey), which is located in the English Channel and thus part of the Channel Islands.

Moving forward to 1870, it was time to look for Andrew Snow Taylor on his own. I found him, still living in New York City, this time with a new wife, Emma, and a son, William. His birthplace is listed very clearly as 'Isle of Guernsey'. He appears again in 1880 with wife Emma and son William, with his birthplace listed as 'Guernsey Ile'.

So now we have a dilemma with our family story. I have no primary source documents backing up the census records, but I'm working on it. I haven't completely tossed the idea of our Native American connection - but 'Isle of Guernsey' is really nagging at me. If our ancestors were going to make up a place to cover up the fact that they were Native American (which did happen, I'm sure), that's awfully specific, isn't it? The Isle of Guernsey is a tiny little island between England and mainland Europe - not exactly someplace that just pops into your head.

My grandmother insists that many years ago, Uncle Eddie documented the Native American connection and had it verified by the tribe. If that's the case, then maybe I'm on the wrong path here - but I haven't seen that research. For all I know it doesn't exist anymore, or was flawed to begin with. Without seeing it, I can't trust it blindly. All I can know for sure is what the records I have are telling me, and they certainly seem to contradict the family stories.

I'm working on getting a copy of Andrew Orson Taylor's Civil War pension file, which I hope will help clarify his exact place of birth and maybe a bit on his parentage. With any luck, I'll have a copy in a few weeks' time. In the meantime, if anyone has any information about our supposed Native American ancestry (and maybe some idea of where the older research is!), I'd be grateful if you'd share!