Revelations from y-DNA testing in early 2017 caused me to totally change all previously published information about my patriline for everyone born earlier than my 4th great-grandfather, William Taylor Sr. c.1740 – c.1820. Thanks to yDNA testing and SNP testing, I can now write that my immigrant paternal ancestor is Edward Taylor who was born in England, came to colonial New Jersey and died there in Monmouth County in 1710.

After leaving his family home in Monmouth New Jersey, William Taylor Sr. and his family settled in NC, GA, & TN.  His descendants (including my ggggrandfather, Drury Taylor) moved on to IL, then AR until finally, after stopping in MO and OK,  crossing the Red River into Texas where my father, grandfather, and ggrandfather all lived and died.

Although I am still missing info about several gggrandparents and gggranduncles who seem to have vanished in northern Arkansas after the Civil War, I was very fortunate to find a set of well-written, well-documented books about my Taylor line authored by Ardis Taylor (of Lisbon, ND). With the exception of the last three generations, most of my Taylor Family tree (downline from William Taylor Sr.) is based on these books.

Primary Surnames from my 3-generation chart include:  Taylor, Smithen, Throgmorton, Phillips, Risenhoover, Parker, Simmons, Power, Timmons, Fitzgerald, Pritchett, Davis, Walker, Hiler, Thomason

Due to privacy concerns and numerous incidents of blatant plagiarism, I have been compelled to change my TAYLOR Tree on Ancestry.com from public to private.  I apologize for the inconvenience this causes but, at least for the present, it must remain private.

My TAYLOR tree is still available for public access on RootsWeb but I do not recommend relying too heavily on the information in this tree as it is outdated and contains data we now know to be incorrect. Unfortunately, I am presently unable to maintain or update this tree because RootsWeb (owned by Ancestry.com) has made all the trees inaccessible to their owners for “security” reasons.

About DNA testing … I strongly recommend FamilyTreeDNA.com (FTDNA) for the y-DNA test. It opened up a whole new genealogy horizon for me and it might do the same for you! If you join the Taylor Family Project through FTDNA, please contact me via email.