SALUTATIONS
Key West FL: This edition is different from the standard one in view of the need to accommodate two goals. First, ye editor spent several weeks in the south where the sun never failed to set without a burst of goodbye glory, where the fish lolled around in glorious blue and yellow instead of Washington drab, where I had to buy sun screen and two pairs of shorts -- where I had no AOL .
It'll take a while, but I'll catch up on the mail. If you wrote and found the mailbox was full, I hope you saved your message and will send it again. Give me a few days, though.
The other reason is more or less altruisic depending on your personal definition of altruism. In past issues, we have addressed a number of questions about our early Talilaferro family. As happens so often in studying and researching early Americn families, we have many lingering questions about the mothers of our ancestors. You have been outstandingly generous in locating and sending information to share with our group of Ts which I agreed to compile. The aim here is to present this compiled information from which we can find directions for further inqiry. As always, let's probe, ask questions, challenge, send additional information - whatever you think is needed to explore and discover our true heritage.
Before moving on to a status report, I extend a big, hearty THANK YOU to those who shared information with those of us who were in need. You were just superb! We could look for years and never have found some of this information. I've thanked each of you personally, and will not list names for fear I might leave someone out.
Even if you pay only glancing attention to this issue, you will observe
that we started out with four questsions and ended up with many more.
Is this progress?
TALIAFERROS OF EUROPE
1. Who were the parents of Joane Lane who married Bartholomew Taliaferro in London in 1583?
Researchers report (a) that she was the daughter of Thomas Lane, but no one seems to know why this conclusion was reached or have evidence that it is correct; and (b) an unchallenged (but challengeable) theory has been advanced that she may have been the daughter or granddaughter of John Lane/Laynere of Cornhill, London, court musician, whose family owned much property on Hart Street where Bartholomew and Joane Taliaferro lived. No new research has addressed this question. Joane Taliaferro, widowed in 1602, married second Thomas Gray of Whitechapel, Middlesex County.
This record may also provide information about the Taliaferro and Graye families: [Source: "Colonial Settlers and English Adventurers, Abstracts of Legal Proceedings in Seventeenth-Century English & Dutch Courts Relating to Immigrant Families," by Noel Currer-Briggs, 1971 pg. 294 (#285) Chancery Cases 1550-1650 (abstracts) C.2.Eliz. G.2/56]
*****Thomas Graye and Johan his wife vs. Thomas Martin (concerning) a garden and certain tenements near Bethelem, in the parish of St. Botolph, without Bishopsgate, demised by Thomas Martin to Bartholomew Taliaferro dec., former husband of Johan; London. [Source: "Colonial Settlers and English Adventurers, Abstracts of Legal Proceedings in Seventeenth-Century English & Dutch Courts Relating to Immigrant Families," by Noel Currer-Briggs, 1971 pg. 294 (#285) Chancery Cases 1550-1650 (abstracts) C.2.Eliz. G.2/56]
Continuing the Graye inquiry, Elizabeth, the daughter of Bartholomew Taliaferro married her stepbrother William Graye. She was still living at the time he died. It may be interesting to find out if they had children and what happened to them & whether Elizabeth married again. Her children may be Roger & Anne Taliaferro's only first cousins. [Source: 'Genealogies of Virginia Families,' "The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography", Volume V, Randolph-Zouch, Indexed by Thomas L. Hollowak, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1981., pp. 373-382]
Inquiries about the Graye family has additional, and potentially powerful,
relevance when conidering the issues addressed under Question No. 4 below.
You will see there that references to the Graye family remain very relevant
to study of the Taliaferoor family as late as a century after the birth
of Robert Taliaferro.
WE NEED:
(a) Research of English resources to establish the identity of
the father of Joane Lane who appears to have lived in the St. Michael's
Cornhill section of London in 1564 when she married Bartholomew Taliaferro.
Perhaps the Registry of St. Michael's in Cornhill has been published or
is available on the IGS of the Church of Latter Day Saints CD-Roms.
Can we identify heads of household in Cornhill who might be her parent?
(b) What property did Bartholomew Taliaferro purchase in the St. Botolph's Parish, Bishopsgate, London? Have the St. Botolph's Parish registries been searched for Taliaferro or other other relevant data?
(c) Did Elizabeth and William Graye have children and did any of them marry and come to America?
~~~~~~~~
2. Did Francis Taliaferro (1590-1647 ) of Bethnal Green, Middlesex Co, England, have two wives: Bennett Haie and Miriam _(?)_? Can we develop information about all of his children?
Agreement is unanimous and long established that Francis Taliaferro, the son of Bartholomew Taliaferro of Venice and Joane Lane/Laynere, was baptized January 25, 1589/90 at St. Olave's Hart Street in London, and that in 1614 he married Bennett Haie at St. Saviour's in Southwarke, Surry Co. They lived in Bethnal Green, Middlesex, a London suburb, and his burial is registered at St. Dunstan's, Stepney Parish.
Many of us were stunned to learn that, indeed, there was a very good reason why fifteen years elapsed between the marriage of Francis and Bennett Taliaferro and the birth of their 'two' children, Ann and Robert. The baptisms of five older daughters of Francis Taliaferro were registered at St. Dunstan's, Stepney. One of our TT participants very generously shared this unpublished, privately acquired research with us. We do not know at this time whether some of the older sisters of Anne and Robert Taliaferro survived, or married, or had Taliaferro descendants.
There is an unconfirmed report that Francis Taliaferro had a second wife, Miriam _?_. It appears that she may have died a few weeks after he died in 1647 and was also buried from St. Dunstan's. Because a young daughter, Anne Taliaferro, administered Francis Taliaferro's estate, it appears that Francis Taliaferro had no living wife to act as Administrator.
As of this date, we have not discovered a date of burial for Bennett
Haie Taliaferro, nor found a marriage record for the second marriage, nor
discovered any information, other than baptismal, regarding the five daughters
of Francis and Bennett Haie.
WE NEED:
(a) Who was the family of Bennett Haie who married Francis Taliaferro
in 1614? Did she have brothers and sisters? Did young Robert
Taliaferro have Haie/Hay cousins? There may be an easy solution to this.
The Huguenot Society Publications contain years of special tax reports
from London and its suburbs including Souhwarke. Bennett Haie's family
appears in this resource if someone can look up the references. These
lists contain an astounding amount of information and do not limit the
content to Huguenot data. It accesses the records and surveys in which
Huguenot families appear.
(b) When did Bennett Haie die? Is her burial registered at St. Dunstan's, Stepney? Or might it be that she was buried from her childhood parish, St. Savior's in Southwarke across the river.
(c) What happened to the five little daughters whose births preceded the births of Ann and Robert Taliafferro? Did any of them reach maturity, marry, or have descendants?
Did Francis Taliaferro marry a second time to someone named Miriam _?_
who died soon after he did? Did he have any children born after Robert
Taliaferro?
COLONIAL TALLIAFERROS
3. What is the correct name of the wife of Robert Taliaferro and who were her parents?
In 1672, soon after the death of Robert Taliaferro, Sr., his widow styled
herself "Mrs. Katherine Taliaferro." This early usage is preserved
in the Court Record Books of "Old" Rappahannock Co VA (progenitor of Essex
and Caroline Counties). In this instance, the widow of Robert Taliaferro,
herself, used the name Katherine and spelled it with a "K." The recording
clerk would have had her signed statement at hand when the record was originated.
[Source: 'Who was Catherine, the Wife of Cadwallader Jones of Virginia?'
by Henry G. Taliaferro - "Virginia Genealogist," Vol. 38, No. 3,
July-Sept 1994]
The above source addresses the question that the widowed Katherine Dedman Taliaferro married Cadwallader Jones after the death of her first husband. It is a fully researched, well documented article which reaches an affirmative interpretive conclusion. Interestingly, the author cites the young widow's name as she spelled it, Katherine Taliaferro, but otherwise uses the spelling "Catherine." He does not cite a single other instance where the signature of the wife of Cadwallader Jones is used to create a record. She was always represented by someone else who spelled her name with a "C."
Now we know that the wife of Robert Taliaferro styled herself "Katherine." The next goal is to consolidate credible reports of her heritage to see if we can find some guidance. In this case, scenarios with some differences have been published by several researchers.
Presentations by the various researchers appear to support each other, and in fact information now current may have all derived from one or two early published sources. Few contain citations from primary record sources. In fact it may be that few primary records are now extant to confirm published information.
As to the opinion that Katherine Dedman/Debnam adopted her stepfather's name, Grymes, there is no primary information that would lead to this conclusion. I suspect that it represents a misstatement of fact or confusion with her Mother's name made some years ago and perpetuated by repitition. Perhaps a researcher, noting that Robert Taliaferro II and III inherited land from Charles and Katherine Grymes fell into the easy trap of assuming that Charles Grymes was the father, not the step-father, of Katherine Dedman Taliaferro.
Information received from TT participants follows the scenario below, a point of difference arising in the given name of Katherine Taliaferro's father; but not the year of his death. Was he William Dedman or Henry Dedman? As so often happened when court clerks and scribes wrote names, the spelling is variable. Was the surname Dedman, Deadman, or Debnam? It would probably take a great deal of research to determine if the name Dedman/Deadman is the same as the modern Debnam.
Whatever the given name, whatever the spelling of the surname, it forms fifty percent of the base of our American family. Information about Katherine Taliaferro's family is crucial to our understanding of our heritage.
The wife of Robert Taliaferro, the young immigrant, was Katherine Dedman
(or Deadman or Debnam). Her father's given name was either William
or Henry, and her mother's given name was Katherine. Katherine Dedman
was widowed in 1657. She married, second, the Reverend Charles Grymes of
Middlesex County, moving later to Essex County. Katherine (Dedman)
Taliaferro was one of three daughters of William (or Henry) and Katherine
Dedman. Her two sisters were: Ann who married Edward Hoyle (first
cousin of Major Lawrence Smith) and Mary, the wife of Major Lawrence Smith.
[Sources: 'A Discovery Concerning the Townley and Warner Families
of Virginia,' by Mary Burton Derrickson McCurdy in Vol. 5 (1981), pp. 538-590;
and 'Thomas Smith of Fairfax County, Virginia,' by Henry G. Taliaferro
in "The Virginia Genealogist," Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jan-Mar), 1996, 3-17.]
WE NEED:
(a) Primary Virginia research to confirm the identity and learn
more about the life of William/Henry Dedman.
(b) What was the surname of Katherine Taliaferro' Mother, Katherine,
who married William/Henry Dedman, first and then the Reverend Charles Grymes?
RESEARCH
4. Are there unknown Taliafero descendants who were the descendants of the daughters of Bartholomew or Francis Taliaferro?
Clearly, this is the most intriguing question we have addressed during this current effort. There does not appear to be any published research which addresses this question, though there is compelling evidence that there may be other Taliaferro descendants in America or England.
Before tackling this question, there are two points to keep in mind:
1- Due to early death by disease, often epidemic, and lack of sanitation, heirs to estates were sometimes not available. For instance, in early Gloucester County VA, a young man of the surname Burnett changed his surname at the request of his mother's brother who needed an heir. The uncle told his young nephew that he would make him his heir if he changed his surname to Brown so that the surname would survive. I think he succeeded! This was an unusual circumstance, but not unheard of in these years of early death.
2- It is crucial to keep in mind when addressing this question, that the widow of Bartholomew TALIAFERRO, Joane Lane, married second Thomas GRAYE; that Elizabeth TALIAFERRO, daughter of Bartholomew and Joane TALIAFERRO, married William GRAYE - her step brother; and that Francis TALIAFERRO, the only son to leave a male heir, married Bennett HAIE/HAY. I believe that it has also been found that Anne, sister of the immigrant, Robert Talilaferro, married a GRAYE.
In consideration of these three names, Taliaferro, Gray and Hay, in intimate association with one another in England, our present quest may take wings and soar.
Read the words of Thomas Nelson of Yorktown:
" "Captain Nelson's Deposition Concerning GRAY als Hay.
"The deposition of Thomas Nelson of Yorktown in Virginia, aged 49 years: Sayeth:
"That he was born in Perrith, in Cumberland and that he has there seen
JOHN GRAY als HAY when he was a youth and used to go from Kendall (where
his father, Dr. Gray lived, as the deponent has heard) to Scotland and
as he returned at several times: and about the year 1695 the deponent came
to live in White Haven where found Dr. Gray then living with his family,
being married to a second Wife, and his son John, who did that year or
the next go from White Haven to Virginia, and in December 1696, this deponent
went to Virginia, and arrived in Rappahannock River the latter part of
January, and there saw his acquaintance, now called Dr. John Hay and left
him living at Colo. Garwin Corbin's; in the year 1698 this deponent went
to Virginia, and heard that Dr. Hay was married to Mrs. Ann Robinson and
in the spring following at Shrove Tide visited them as man and wife at
the house of X'pher Robinson, but dont remember that they had any children,
but in the year 1700, Mrs Elizabeth Gray als Hay daughter of Dr. Gray of
White Haven went from thence to Va. in the same ship with deponent and
was kindly received by her brother Dr. John Hay.
"This deponent before he departed this country went up to Talifor Mount,
where the Dr. his family and the said sister Elizabeth then lived.
"Then Dr. John Hay had a son named Francis living, and in the year 1705
this deponent came to settle in York River in Virginia and then (illeg....Dr.
Hay?) and his wife Ann lived at Duke's neck in Mid..(illeg....dlesex?)....
and had a son Fran(..cis?) and two daughters which this deponent
ha....
(torn)...... said Francis(a) the..(torn).... school and still knows
him to be the same reputed son of Dr. John Hay and Ann his wife; the Dr.
died....(torn) .... or twenty years ago and further sayeth not.
"Thomas Nelson At a Court held for York County,
Nov. 18th 1728,
This Deposition was presented and sworn to in court and
was admitted to record.
Tests: Philip Lightfoot, C. Co."
In additional testimony relative to this same case, Isbell Schooler
testified similarly adding: ". . she has heard that Dr. Gray had
three children by his last wife who was before he married her (Ann Robinson)
-- they had either one boy and two girls or one girl and two boys
she is not sure which that one was named Robert who she has since heard
lives now in London and goes by ye name of Robert Gray and one named Ann
who also as she has heard lives in London and was married but she knows
not to whom and is now a widow. "
~~~~~~~~
The above cited record was created one hundred years after the Taliaferro-Hay-Gray
marriages in England and the birth of Robert Taliaferro in Bethnal Green
near London. This record were created in Yorktown, Virginia, 3000
miles from the English birthplace of our immigrant ancestor. They survived
all of the depredations inflicted upon the records of eastern Virginia.
Even so, the surnames Taliaferro, Gray and Hay are still linked. Surely
this is not accidental. I find it to be an uncanny revelation.
Geographical note: the towns, Perrith and Kendal, cited at the
beginning of the Nelson deposition, are in the north of England near the
border between Northumberland and Cumberland Counties and not many miles
south of Carlyle at the border between England and Scotland. Yes,
it is a long way from London.
The following information may provide some insight into the 'smallness' of the English population whose sons and daughters came to Virginia. Perrith and Kendal form a geographical triangle in which the third point was the village of Appleby. Appleby is the ancestral seat of the Claiborne family. William Claiborne, sometimes Deputy Governor, Secretary of State and Treasurer of Virginia, was born southside of the Thames River in Kent. His mother, like Robert Taliaferro's mother, was born in Southwarke, Surry, England. When Claiborne's parents, Thomas Claiborne and Sarah (Smith) James married in the 1595, his father was a merchant of Norfolk, England, and she a widow living in Bethnal Green, Middlesex County, the same suburb where Francis and Bennett Haie Taliaferro lived after their marriage William Claiborne's birth preceeded Robert Taliaferro's by twenty-six years and he arrived in Virginia twenty-six years earlier than Robert Taliaferro. Both were in the twenty-first year of their lives when they first came to Virginia. But both found homes in the York River basin.
NEED:
(a) Where is White Haven in England where both the Gray family and Thomas Nelson lived?
(b) Identity of the family of Dr. John Gray of White Haven, Cumberland County, England. Is he a descendant of Elizabeth Taliaferro, daughter of Bartholomew and Joane Taliaferro?
(c) Did Anne Taliaferro, daughter of Francis Taliaferro, also marry a Graye?
(d) Virginia research relative to Dr. John Gray/Hay who married Ann Robinson in Virginia. Is he the progenitor of the Virginia Hay family whose descendants so often married Taliaferros?
(e) Research the reason why Dr. John Gray of Virginia changed his name to Hay. Was Hay a family name?
(f) How was the Hay name which Dr. John Gray adopted connected to the family of Bennett Haie who married Francis Taliaferro in 1614 in Southwarke, Surry, England?
In short we've learned a lot, much of it about how much we don't know; but we've just begun our adventure.
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TALIAFERRO TIMES: Compiled from email and other sources
Distributed by Joyce Browning
cJBrown7169@AOL.com
19 February 1997