Please Let Me Have Been Barking Up the Wrong Tree!

Job Taylor, wife Betsey, and possible children Simeon Taylor, Betsey Taylor, and George Taylor.  All other records I find of "Simeon" list him as Simon.  1850 U.S. census, Johnson County, Iowa, population schedule, Washington township, p. 130 (stamped), dwelling 67, family 67, Job Taylor; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 18 Oct 2016); citing NARA microfilm publication M432, roll 185.

I've spent every which way trying to figure out Sarah Lynchard and Thomas Taylor, and have been disappointed that not one of my mother's DNA matches seems to track in any meaningful way with what I know of those two.  A doubt has been growing in my mind that they are not actually our ancestors.  The woman I thought was their daughter, Elizabeth Taylor (b abt 1845 in Ohio), married George Marion Tomlinson in 1860, and my mother has plenty of DNA confirmation for those Tomlinsons.  But no Taylors from Maryland (well, some moderate matches back in the 1600s but that isn't very promising considering how common the Taylor name is).

So I decided yesterday to get back to basics.  First, was the Elizabeth Taylor who married Tomlinson the daughter of Thomas Taylor and Sarah Lynchard?  Why was I assuming that?  I have no direct evidence that she was, except that she was in the right place (Washington County, Iowa in 1860) and of marriageable age (although I was pushing it, as she was only about 14 or 15 in 1860).

When I had decided to settle on Thomas Taylor and Sarah Lynchard as the parents a few years ago, I thought I had exhausted the likely Elizabeth Taylors in the area of marriageable age.  But being new to the game, I managed to overlook a certain BETSEY Taylor (b abt 1835 in Ohio) who lived in the area between Washington County, Iowa and neighboring Johnson County, Iowa.  An area somewhat closer to where George Tomlinson was living in 1860.  She would have been about 25 (George would have been about 21).

And when I checked my mother's highest Taylor DNA matches, sure enough she had both a Very High Confidence match (51 centimorgans shared across 3 DNA segments) and a Good match (19.2 centimorgans shared across 3 DNA segments) to descendants of this Betsey Taylor's brother, Simon Taylor , who lived most of his life in Washington County, Iowa.

Hello!  Could this be my big Taylor breakthrough, finally?





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