Taylor of Monmouth NJ

Descendants of Edward Taylor d. 1710, Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey
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FAQ

Q.  I see lots of sites claiming a Taylor Coat of Arms or a Crest for our Taylor family of Middletown, Monmouth, NJ but there are several, and the Coats of Arms are different from each other.  Which one is correct?

A.  The short answer is "none of them" but there is a caveat to that answer.  First some formalities.  In England, a Coat of Arms is never awarded by the Crown.  The Crown only grants titles, honors, and positions.  Coats of Arms were/are granted only upon application by an individual to the College of Heralds in London, sometimes that was made in conjunction with being granted an honor by the Crown but being honored was/is not a requirement.  A Crest is granted as part of that Coat of Arms, but never without a Coat of Arms and, with some limited exceptions, is never used alone, while the Coat of Arms may be used with or without its Crest (if granted).  Supporters of a Coat of Arms and a Helm may be requested during the application process by the individual, which may or may not be approved.  

A motto is neither granted nor awarded.  Mottos are chosen by the individual, and may be changed as often as they like without being officially recorded, however one usually was recorded.  In fact records show the same motto being used by multiple families, some related, some not.  If you wish to have an officially recorded Coat of Arms, you may apply to the College of Heralds however when last checked the cost of same started at 5 digits, before the decimal point.

With that being said, research in 2018 by the College of Heralds reveals that aEdward (ti) Taylor was never granted a Coat of Arms, therefore has no Crest, Helm or Supporters either.  The mentioned caveat is, one branch of one of the descendants of acGeorge Taylor was granted a Coat of Arms, however, it was not for an already existing Taylor family Coat of Arms that they had applied for and were denied.  The granted Coat of Arms was not a pre-existing armorial, rather it is/was an original, created at the time of granting.  This granted Taylor Coat of Arms may only be used by those Taylors who are direct descendants of the one individual whom the grant from the College of Heralds was made in right of.  That branch would be the descendants of acbeWillam Taylor who was a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War and it was applied for on his behalf by his son, General Sir acbebJoseph Pringle Taylor KH.  Pringle was a Captain of Dragoons at the time of the time of the application in 1823 and was knighted in 1834.   

[Yes, some of Pringle's accomplishments are included in the book Tim is writing.]

In America there is a Heraldry organization to whom you may apply for a Coat of Arms of which there is neither cost nor granting, just recording.  It is not Officially official, but at least one member of our group project has undertaken the process and might be willing to answer questions in the chat about the process.


Q. Why do you use a letter or set of letters in front of a person's name?

A.  In order to keep the many similar names in our Taylor family identified (for our own sanity if nothing else) Tim has adopted a little known and rarely used style called the Modified Alpha Register to show the line of descent of a particular individual. Since our earliest known ancestor (EKA) for the Taylors of Monmouth line is the Edward Taylor who died in 1710, after living in Middletown, Monmouth, NJ for several decades, he is the top of our descending tree.  Known variously as Edward the immigrant Taylor or Edward (ti) Taylor, using the Modified Alpha Register method, he is identified as aEdward (ti) Taylor.  His children show his identifier and then a second alpha character based on their order of birth.  His oldest child is his son aaEdward b.1678, followed by abHannah b.1680, acGeorge b.1684, adWilliam b.1688, aeJohn b.1690, and the youngest is afJoseph b.ca. 1692.  Middle Initials were not used in our family, or if used not recorded, and are only found in historical documents in the mid to late 1700's.  Therefore this 'Alpha' method of identification becomes increasingly important as we see that each of those sons name their children and their children name their children using the same names, Edward, George, William, Joseph, and John, with other spouses family given names added to the mix.  Not being wont to break a tradition, many of those same names are still in use in today's generations.  We would be lost trying to keep their lineage straight by putting the names of their parents in a line after their names.  It is shorter and easier to show their line using the alpha modification.  The first letter, on the left of the string always denotes aEdward (ti), first of our line in New Jersey, then the ancestors of the named individual follow in order.  The alpha character usually indicates birth order, or lacking such then by using Stillwell's recorded order.  The letter closest to the named individual is that individual's letter denoting where they are recorded in their line of siblings.  

For example, Tim descends from aEdward's oldest son aaEdward and from him through his fifth child aaeJames' second child, aaebJohn etc., whereas Johnny descends from aEdward's youngest son afJoseph's 8th child, a son, afhWilliam etc. 

It was said that in Monmouth County, in the mid to late 1700's, you couldn't kick a bush or shake a tree without an Edward, George, John, James, William, or Joseph Taylor falling out of it, and sometimes there were more than one of them that fell out.

Q. Didn't aEdward (ti) marry Catharine de Cartaret?

A.  We do not know who the wife of aEdward was... yet. but we are still looking.  Not knowing who she was we do not accept any Catharine nor reject any non-Catharine until we have 'documented' proof of aEdward's marriage.  The only "proof" of a Catharine de Cartaret is an endless line of websites that show no documentation that a Catharine de Cartaret even existed, other than referring to another website, which does the same thing.  (Tim's research shows that there was no Catharine de Cartaret in that time period nor at any location where our aEdward Taylor lived.)

Q. Is Stillwell's 'Taylor of Monmouth' genealogy in Volume 4 of Historical and Genealogical Miscellany of New Jersey always accurate?

A.  Unfortunately there are mistakes in every volume ever published regarding our Taylor Ancestry.  That is why it is important to do our own research using original documents found in Archives across our country.  We do use other published early research when nothing else is available, but actual deeds, wills, court documents, church documents, letters, and other primary source documents are sought to verify what has been printed.  Tim and John have both found errors and omissions in all of the published research.  John has published many of his findings on his website, and Tim is in the process of writing a book correcting those errors and omissions that he has identified, with citations of his original sources and what those documents revealed.

Q.  My last name is not Taylor yet I have the Taylor Y-DNA.  Why?

A.  We didn't always have the quality of Health Care that we do today.  Because of that, one or both parents often died leaving their children to be raised by the surviving spouse, or relatives, friends.  We have not found evidence of any placed in an orphanage.  Often times infants would be claimed by the new parents and given their family surname and the child would grow up perhaps knowing, or not knowing them to be their adopted parent(s).  There are many scenarios that we have seen played out in the records.  In one a mother died and the father could not both work the farm and care for the little ones.  They went to various relatives (the deceased wife's sisters or brothers) who took them in and raised them as their own, and some of the children took the Uncle's surname. The father remarried when they were young but did not take the children back and had more children with the second wife.   In another scenario, the father died leaving his widow with two children, she remarried shortly after and a son was born a few months later.  His line had the deceased father's DNA but he bore the step father's surname.   

There were also the Orphan Trains that took children from large cities and sent them West where they were adopted by families that had the ability to care for them.  Yes they were expected to work, usually on a farm, and there are stories written by or about those children.  Yes, sometimes there were children born out of wedlock, and they were given a non-Taylor surname and had no idea what their actual heritage was, and in many cases were raised as a child in the other parent's home.  None of these examples changes the fact that they were loved and raised as part that family and should not change any thing about their adopted parents, siblings, or ancestors.  What it does do is provide them with an additional set of relatives who are eager to meet them and get to know them.


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