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?





© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Comparing First Cousins: Elizabeth Taylor, Archibald Mullenix, and Elizabeth Henrietta Mullinex (Updated: They Aren't Cousins At All)

Elizabeth Taylor (1844-1863), who married George Tomlinson. Courtesy of Olive Kennedy.

I am deeply uneasy about my 2nd great grandmother Rufina Tomlinson's maternal upline through her mother Elizabeth Taylor, primarily because I have not found one single confident DNA cousin match for my mother to either of Elizabeth's parents (Thomas Taylor and Sarah Lynchard).  In contrast, we have plenty of Rufina's father George Tomlinson cousin matches.  Am I barking up the wrong tree?  Or did we simply not get much of their DNA?

Or, do we already have a bunch of DNA matches but they are all to people who do not have public trees for me to compare?  I'm hoping that is what is happening, and that more Taylor/Lynchard descendants just need to put up both their DNA and develop their trees [let's get cracking on that, people!].

Although I don't put too much stock in looks to discover if people are related, I feel a little better when comparing the photo above of Elizabeth Taylor to known photos of her first cousins through her mother Sarah Lynchard's sister Mary Polly Lynchard Mullenix's children, Archibald Mullenix and Elizabeth Henrietta Mullenix.

What struck me was Archibald Mullenix's (1846-1916) jawline compared to Elizabeth Taylor's jawline.  They are quite similar. Image shared by Ancestry user scoutmaster87.

Elizabeth Henrietta Mullenix (1852-1895). Dark hair seemed to run in the Lynchard side, although I think I read that the Mullenix's were dark.  I haven't a clue what a Lynchard looks like. Image shared by Ancestry user DawnOBrien41.

And Rufina:

Daughter of Elizabeth Taylor and George Tomlinson.  Her jawline is similar to my eyes as to her mother and uncle Archibald. Courtesy of Olive Kennedy.

UPDATE 2018:   This kind of comparison is pretty worthless.  Similar jawlines notwithstanding, I proved a while back that we were not related to the Lynchard/Mullenix's at all, but a different Taylor family in Iowa (Job Taylor and Betsey LNU).


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Some Notes on Thomas J Taylor in Iowa

One of my brick walls is my 4th great grandfather Thomas J Taylor (1807-1890), married to  my other (semi-brick wall) ancestor Sarah A Lynchard (1819-1879).  They were the parents of my 3rd great grandmother Elizabeth Taylor and grandparents of Elizabeth's daughter Rufina "Fina" Tomlinson (my biological grandmother Alta Mae Slater's paternal grandmother).

Of obscure origins in Maryland about 1808, Thomas lived somewhere in Pennsylvania before appearing in Cincinnati, Ohio records (where he married second wife Sarah in 1841), and near Bloomington, Illinois by 1850.  He and his family then moved to Iowa about 1854.

He is first found in Iowa in the 1854 Iowa state census in Crawford Township, Washington County, Iowa, and appears at the bottom of the county in this 1859 ownership map:

Map of Washington County, Iowa, 1859 (from the Iowa Counties Historic Atlases section of  Iowa Digital Library) , with arrow pointing to Thomas Taylor's area.

Detail of Thomas Taylor's land in Crawford Township.  His neighbors are also found in the 1860 Census.

They moved to Wapello County sometime between the 1860 Census and 1870 Census.

I found county histories for both Washington County (1880) and Wapello County (1878).

As Wapello County's terrain looked about 1878.  Thomas was in the eastern end of Richland Township.

Alas, nothing so vulgar as a birth date or place of birth for Thomas Taylor in this listing.

Info from the Agriculture 1870 Schedule
Name: Thomas Taylor
Location: Richland, Wapello, Iowa, USA
Enumeration Date: 22 Jun 1870
Schedule Type: Agriculture
OS Page: 3
Line Number: 13



80 acres improved land

$3200 present cash value of farm

$150 present cash value of farming implements and machinery

$15 total amount of wages paid during the year, including value of board

3 or 5? horses

2 milch cows

4 other cattle

13 swine

$470 value of all live stock

101 bushels of spring wheat

900 bushels of Indian corn

180 bushels of oats

350 pounds of butter

4 tons of hay

10 gallons of molasses

$30 value of animals slaughtered or sold for slaughter

$667 estimated value of all farm production, including betterments and additions to stock

Thomas Taylor 1870 closeup Antique Map Collection (HistoryGeo.com)

Thomas Taylor in Richmond 1870 from Antique Map Collection (HistoryGeo.com)

My view of part of the Wapello County map while using HistoryGeo.  Note the citation back to the LOC.  HistoryGeo provides an index to search for each map, as you can see in the blue high-lighted selection in the index box.  I have highlighted Richland Township, where Thomas Taylor lived, in yellow.

If you don't have HistoryGeo you can of course check out the same map at the Library of Congress.

Thomas does not show up in BLM General Land Office Records for Wapello County, as he came after the federal government was involved with the sale of land there, and the records would therefore be handled on the local level.




© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Who is Sarah Lynchard's Father? Not Thomas Lynchard

My ancestress is not listed with the orphans of Thomas "Linchard."  "Kentucky Probate Records, 1727-1990," index and images, FamilySearch(http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-20796-42501-37?cc=1875188&wc=37RK-BZ3:173765401,174197401 : accessed 12 April 2015), Scott > Will records, 1809-1817, Vol. B > image 119 of 473; county courthouses, Kentucky.

Oh boy.

Scott is next to Bourbon County, Kentucky.  County boundaries in 1815, from http://www.mapofus.org/kentucky/

I was very excited last week to unearth the Scott County, Kentucky, record for the orphans of Thomas Lynchard, who has long been considered the father of Sarah Lynchard.  Except Sarah Lynchard was born about 1819, and Thomas Lynchard obviously died before Nov 6, 1815.

This gives some wiggle room to Sarah's brother Henry Clay Lynchard, who could be Thomas's son if he was born sometime before August 1816.  Henry's birth year wavered between 1816 and 1818 in census records.  But if he was indeed born in 1817 then he can't be Thomas Lynchard's son either.  His biography from a Henry County, Iowa, county history book indicates 1817, but as we all know those can be prone to error:

Sarah's mother Prudence Talbot Lynchard has some explaining to do!

Not adding up.  From "My Virginia kin : comprising the Hamlett, Witt, Giles, Wills, Eubank-Fortune, Mullenix, Lynchard, Talbot, and Kight families" book on Ancestry.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Sarah A. Lynchard (1819 - 1879)

There's so much more that we would like to know about this maternal great great great grandmother, like what her maiden name actually was since her father Thomas's surname* seems to be spelled differently every time it appears.

We're not sure if Sarah was born before her father died but by the time she was about a year old, her mother Prudence (Talbot) Lynchard was listed as the head of a household with six children under the age of 16 in the 1820 U.S. Census for Owen County, Kentucky.

[Ancestry.com. 1820 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Fourth Census of the United States, 1820. (NARA microfilm publication M33, 142 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

Prudence married a man named William Bowman, a butcher by trade, a year or two after the 1820 census and the family moved to several more locations in Kentucky before settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, perhaps as early as 1825 and certainly by 1829.

When Sarah was about 15 she lost her mother and she may be one of the three "Free White Persons - Females - 20 thru 29" in her older brother Henry Clay Lynchard's household in the 1840 U.S. Census for Cincinnati Ward 1, Hamilton County, Ohio.

[Ancestry.com. 1840 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.Original data: Sixth Census of the United States, 1840. (NARA microfilm publication M704, 580 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

In Cincinnati on June 20, 1841, Sarah A. Lynchard married Thomas J. Taylor, a 33-year old widower with three daughters under the age of 10. From city directories we know that Thomas was working as a drayman** during that period.

["Cincinnati-in-1841" by Klauprech & Menzel -- Printer Of plates - http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?54780.Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cincinnati-in-1841.jpg#/media/File:Cincinnati-in-1841.jpg]

The couple's oldest four children were born in Ohio*** including my great great grandmother Elizabeth in 1845. By the 1850 U.S. Census however, the family had moved to the North Side of Old Town in McLean County, Illinois, and Thomas had become a farmer, owning land worth $1,600.

[Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

However the 1860 U.S. Census shows the Taylors living in Crawford Township in Washington County, Iowa, with the James McKee family, whose relationship to the Taylors (if any) we don't know about. It doesn't appear that the Taylors owned any land at this point--perhaps because of the financial Panic of 1857?

[Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

In the 1870 U.S. Census records for Wapello County, Iowa, we find Thomas, Sarah and three of their children in Richland Township. Thomas is listed as a farmer owning land worth $3,200 and personal estate valued at $800. A teenager named Sarah A. King, employed as a domestic servant, is living with them.

[Map of Wapello County, State of Iowa. Chas. Shober & Co., props., Chicago Lith. Co. (Published by the Andreas Atlas Co., Lakeside Building, Chicago, Ills. Engraved & printed by Chas. Shober & Co., Props. of Chicago Lithographing Co.)

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection]

[Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.Minnesota census schedules for 1870. NARA microfilm publication T132, 13 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

Although the Taylors seem to be doing well financially, tragedy had struck the family over the years with the deaths of six of their ten children: Emma (1852-1855), two infants, Charles W. (1858) and Lydia (1861), Eleanor H. 1851-1861), Elizabeth (1845-c1863), and John W. (1843-1865)****.

Sarah died on August 28, 1879, of what the U.S. Federal Mortality Schedule for 1880 calls "Abscess of the Liver" and is buried in Westview Cemetery in Kirkville in Wapello County where she had lived for 13 years.

[Ancestry.com. U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1885 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. A portion of this collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. Original data: United States. Nonpopulation Census Schedules for Iowa, 1850-1880. T1156, rolls 54-62.National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.]

Thomas survived Sarah by 11 years and is buried in Westview Cemetery also.

Thomas and Sarah are the grandparents of my great grandmother Rufina Ellen Tomlinson Slater.

*Examples include: Lynchard, Linch, Lenchard, Lincher, among others.
**Someone who drives a dray used for deliveries, often of beer. Since German immigrants to Cincinnati begun to expand the number of breweries there by 1840 perhaps that's what his work entailed.
***Probably Cincinnati.
****John W. enlisted in Company E, Iowa 13th Infantry Regiment on October 24, 1864, and died of "Chronic Dysentery" in Bridgeport, Alabama, the following January.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Preserve the 1812 Pensions

The War of 1812 Pension Digitization Project has been going on for a while now.  I can't wait until it's finally done!

I have already donated some money towards the project in honor of two of my known War of 1812 soldiers, Jesse Sill and Thomas Lynchard.  The time period between the late 1700's through the 1830's represents a sizable gap in my understanding of my ancestors, and I think once this project is done it will help shed considerably more light on some people in that era.



© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Madness Monday: Thomas Lynchard

Thomas Lynchard (about 1780-before 1820), my 5th great grandfather, drives me mad.  Where was he born?  Who were his parents?  Why do I not find a single other person in the United States with the last name Lynchard before 1800?  Was his last name Lynchard, or Linchard, or Lencher?

The few things that I do know come from a very nice family history, "My Virginia kin : comprising the Hamlett, Witt, Giles, Wills, Eubank-Fortune, Mullenix, Lynchard, Talbot, and Kight families" by Blanche Hamlett Baldridge (available to Ancestry.com users here), a marriage bond for him and his wife Prudence Talbert/Talbot in West Virginia, and a Stoner Township, Bourbon, Kentucky 1810 Census entry.

I have searched US records for anyone with the last name Lynchard in 1800 and before.  The only result I came across is Revolutionary War soldier  Amasa Lynchard who served for Rhode Island.  Further investigation in Fold3.com revealed that this was most certainly an erroneous transcription of Amasa Linchorn/Lincoln.  I doubt that Lincher/Lencher/Lynchard is a corruption of Lincoln, but I am not totally sure.

[Ancestry.com. My Virginia kin : comprising the Hamlett, Witt, Giles, Wills, Eubank-Fortune, Mullenix, Lynchard, Talbot, and Kight families : [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.
Original data: Baldridge, Blanche Hamlett,. My Virginia kin : comprising the Hamlett, Witt, Giles, Wills, Eubank-Fortune, Mullenix, Lynchard, Talbot, and Kight families : with a short treatise on the Loving family. Strawberry Point, Iowa: Press-Journal Pub. Co., 1958.]

There are some problems with above biography.  If Thomas and wife Prudence got to know each other in Bourbon County, Kentucky, then why they would go about 289 miles east to Harrison County, West Virginia (then part of Virginia) to get this marriage bond recorded?

["West Virginia Marriages, 1780-1970," index, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FR6S-64M : accessed 08 Jul 2014), Thomas Leuchard and Prudence Talbert, Harrison, West Virginia; citing v 2 p 68; FHL microfilm 847274.]

Harrison County, West Virginia, was created from Monongalia County, West Virginia (Virginia) in 1784.  I suspect that Thomas Lynchard was possibly born in that area, but his surviving children gave Ireland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky as his place of birth in their 1880 Census.  What I glean from this is that they thought he was:

• of Irish ancestry
• possibly born in what was Virginia  (and in an area was that was very close to Pennsylvania along the Monongahela River), 
• possibly from Kentucky, as it was still a part of Virginia around the time he was born (Kentucky was formed from Virginia in 1776).

It has been assumed by the "My Virginia Kin" work that Prudence was the daughter of Bourbon County, Kentucky resident Henry Talbot and his first wife, Hannah King.  For a number of reasons that I will cover on another day, I believe that Prudence was more likely the daughter (or at least relation) of Cottrell Talbot and Elizabeth Reger, who lived in the same area as where the marriage bond was created, and were known to have had a daughter named Prudence.  I don't think Thomas Lynchard and Prudence came to Bourbon County, Kentucky until 1806, based on known children's birthplaces.

[Year: 1810; Census Place: Stoner, Bourbon, Kentucky; Roll: 5; Page: 248; Image: 00136; Family History Library Film: 0181350. Ancestry.com. 1810 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Original data: Third Census of the United States, 1810. (NARA microfilm publication M252, 71 rolls). Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

The household of Thos Linchard indicates 1 boy under 10, 1 man 26-44, 2 girls under 10, 1 woman 26-44.  The census list is alphabetical, so it is unknown who his immediate neighbors were.  There are no other Linchards/Lynchards in the area.  There IS a Hamilton Lincher about 40 miles south in Estill County, Kentucky (formed from Madison and Clark counties in 1808).  I need to investigate who this is.

The story goes that Thomas Lynchard served in the War of 1812 and died sometime afterwards from the effects of exposure during his service.  I do not know his dates of service or date of death.  His wife Prudence appears in the 1820 Census as the head of household in Owen County, Kentucky.  She married 2 years later  to Jacob Bowman and moved to Cincinnati, where she died about 1834, so it is unlikely she ever filed a widow's claim for Thomas Lynchard's 1812 service.


© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.