The Cousins You Meet Online

When I first began researching my family history, I knew very little about researching beyond my own family. I was fortunate to live in a city housing one of the country's best genealogical libraries at the time. I grew up in the South and just assumed I came from a deep line of Southerners. Imagine my surprise when I found a census record with my maternal grandfather in it which identified his place of birth as Illinois. I then began to get the family stories. 

My great grandfather who was of Amish-Mennonite heritage married a woman who grew up Methodist. They began attending the Christian Church after marriage. Her line was an interesting one to me. Her mother's line was clearly New England. The only information I really had about her father's line was something published in one of those "vanity" publications. While parts of it were greatly embellished, it identified her father Stephen's father as Stephen and her grandfather as Isaac. It was said Stephen Sr. went off to fight in the War of 1812 and never came back. Some people say he died in Michigan. No records of his War of 1812 service exist. Stephen Sr. was in Washington County, Ohio by 1804 when he married Lovica Rathbone. Stephen Jr. was born in February 1814. Most people say Stephen Sr. died in 1814 in or near Detroit. We do not know exactly when Stephen Sr. was born, but it is estimated as being around 1780. Stephen Jr. said his father was born in New York. (Some accounts say it was in Little Hoosick, Albany County.)

I was intrigued by my connection to New England and New York. I began to communicate with other researchers via the various mailing lists and message boards that began to crop up. One person answered my query about Stephen, Stephen, and Isaac. He was descended from Isaac's son Cornelius and had been researching the line for many years. Cornelius and Stephen had a sister Debora who married Edmund Rathbone, Lovica's brother. 

My newly found cousin told me about the Taylors and Rathbones ownership of a mill in Ohio County, Virginia. (See the Find a Grave story about Private Edmund Rathbone.) This cousin was never one to share everything he knew. I think he wanted to see if you reached the same conclusion he did. However, he provided hints. Where was Isaac in 1790? My newly found cousin had researched all of the options and was leaning toward Isaac being the one in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania that year. He later concluded that was the case. He never provided a proof argument to me for this. It doesn't really go all that well with Stephen Jr.'s alleged birthplace in New York State.

My distant cousin Edgar Rives Taylor, Jr. died January 31 of this year. His son Gary contacted me earlier this week with the sad news as he was going through his father's email correspondence. When I resume work on the Taylor line, I need to go through my correspondence to pick up any clues or hints provided over the years. The proof argument will be my own, based on my own research, when I am able to clearly identify my ancestor. I will, however, miss Edgar's knowledge and the ability to ask him if he found anything that would negate a conclusion I make. His son Gary posted a lovely tribute to his father which includes part of his father's autobiography.

Related to President Zachary Taylor or Not?

There are a lot of family legends that have been handed down over the years through many of our lines. When I was growing up, I'd always heard that we were related to President Zachary Taylor through my great grandmother Laura Lucy Taylor Lantz. I must confess that when I first began to try to research the family history that I didn't quite know what I did now so my methodology was quite poor. "I knew" we were related to the President because I'd always heard it was so. [There was no concrete evidence--just the family tradition. I never for a moment doubted that we were related.] I was absolutely delighted to discover that Zachary's genealogy had been done so I began looking at the various compiled genealogies of the president. I never could figure out how Laura could possibly fit in. I decided someone must have left off a line on the tree or something. I filed it away to explore some other day.

I had developed more genealogy prowess and discrimination by the time I revisited this line. My first break on the line came through a query I placed online. I don't remember at this point if I had already discovered that Laura's father was Stephen Taylor of McLean County, Illinois at that point or not, but the gentleman who answered my query was able to tell me about Stephen and his brothers. As I began to explore Laura's immediate family, I discovered that one of Laura's brothers was named Zachary Taylor. So - we were related to Zachary Taylor, but it wasn't President Zachary Taylor.

Now . . . there is also a mystery regarding Stephen Taylor's father Stephen Taylor. This southeastern Ohio resident is said to have died in Detroit in 1814 during the War of 1812. I've found nothing to support this claim YET. (I haven't even found him on a list of troups.) There is a letter that was written by a lady in a historical society in that area to a relative from an earlier generation who was researching this. She claims that there was also a creek named after him in southeastern Ohio. I really need to take the time to work on that part of the legend because I'd certainly love to locate the creek. It's just been lower priority for me. I need to do further research on this line, but I need to make a trip to a repository with better southeastern Ohio records to do so. The counties of Washington, Athens, and Morgan are the ones that seem to bear the most significance for the family. They were in Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia) prior to this.

Laura Lucy Taylor

Laura Lucy (Taylor) Lantz was my great grandmother. She was the daughter of Stephen and Betsey (Dearborn) Taylor. She was born 25 April 1854 in McLean County, Illinois. Her father Stephen Taylor was born in the Marietta, Ohio area 28 February 1814 to Stephen and Lovica (Rathbone) Taylor. His father died a few months later, allegedly in the Detroit, Michigan area during the War of 1812 although no record of his service or death has been located. He supposedly had a fascination with riverboats and claims to have known Robert Fulton. Although a minimal search has been done, nothing to corroborate this has been found. Her mother Betsey was born 4 September 1818 in Morgan County, Ohio to Deacon Nathan and Lucy (Perkins) Dearborn. Nathan’s line goes back to Godfrey Dearborn of New Hampshire. Lucy’s line goes back to John Perkins who immigrated to Massachusetts in 1629. Although Laura’s father was not very religious according to his obituary, Laura attended the Methodist church which was very near their home in the portion of McLean County near the Woodford County line. She married Abraham Lowden “Abe” Lantz on 15 February 1874. Abe grew up in an Amish family which had moved to McLean County about 1851. His parents and many of his siblings moved to Howard County, Indiana by 1864, but Abe remained in Illinois where he went to work for a merchant. Eventually Abe owned his own dry goods store in White Oak Township and later in Carlock. He also served as postmaster for some time. After Abe and Laura married, they attended the Christian Church although he never joined. In 1896, a group of Amish from the McLean County, Illinois area moved to Monroe County, Mississippi. Abe, Laura, and their seven living children moved along with this group although they attended the Christian Church. Known children are: Levi Hollis “Lee” (1875-1955), Saloma Olive “Ollie” (1877-1923), Emma (1881-1965), Abraham Lowden “Abe” (1883-1918), Irving Lee “Moses” (1885-1971), Mary Irene “Marie” (1888-1971), and Betsy Barbara “Bess” (1891-1977). (The 1910 census states that she was the mother of 8 children, 7 living. The birth order and sex of the eighth child is not known although it seems likely this child was born between Ollie and Emma.) At least two of Abe’s children served as teachers for the Amish. Laura is said to have been a good cook. She served seven courses with every meal at her husband’s insistence. In 1918, son Abe, a salesman for the Brown Shoe Company, died of yellow fever in Texarkana, Arkansas. Due to the quarantine conditions at that time, his body was buried in Arkansas. His widow eventually moved to Denver, Colorado. Her beloved husband Abe died in 1920. Laura died of cancer 25 September 1922. She and Abe are buried at the Odd Fellows Rest Cemetery in Aberdeen, Mississippi. Her daughter Ollie died in a tragic car-train accident in South Dakota the following year as she was going to Yellowstone National Park with her family for a vacation.

Sources:

Duis, E. The good old times in McLean County, Illinois : containing two hundred and sixty-one sketches of old settlers, a complete historical sketch of the Black Hawk War and descriptions of all matters of interest relating to McLean County. Bloomington, Ill. : Leader Pub. and Print. House, 1874.

Luthy, David. The Amish in America: Settlements that Failed, 1840-1960. Aylmer, Ont.: Pathway Publishers, 1986.

Marriage License, Abraham Lantz and Laura L. Taylor. McLean Co., Illinois, Marriage Book G, p. 249; photocopy in my possession.

Stearns, Ezra S. Plymouth New Hampshire Families. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield Company, 2001. Orig. pub. as vol. 2 of The History of Plymouth, New Hampshire (Cambridge, Mass., 1906).

Also various federal census records; deeds; newspaper clippings; family sources.

Much of the information about Abe's store and duties as postmaster can also be found in McLean County histories and directories which are available at the McLean County Museum of History.