– the unravelling continues.
Well, I think I’ve proven my first Taylor connection using DNA (and possibly disproved one). In my Taylors there are a few matches that were pointed to a John W. Taylor. He and his family were next to my great great grandparents, David A. and Emily (Cole) Taylor, in the 1861 census. I have always suspected this was a brother but had no proof. There are at least 3 and possibly 4 different origin Taylor families in the four surrounding parishes. There is a tangle of Taylors.
To make things worse, I found out that a couple of these DNA cousins were of children of John W’s second marriage to Susannah Cole who is either a cousin or a sister to Emily Cole. So it is within the realm of possibility these connections may have just been Cole and Taylor is a red-herring.
Then, through the wonderfulness of the web, I found one of John W.’s children on Wikitree. Ollister A. (as the name was spelled in the 1861 census for Brunswick Parish in Queens Co., NB) – who I thought was either a Holister or an Allister – is an Allister Alexander. It turns out he had moved to Nova Scotia, possibly by way of Maine, which is why he had disappeared. Through the source material referenced in the profile, I was able to find his death certificate. It gave another clue, his father’s middle name, Wallace. David A. Taylor’s first child was named Wallace. It also gave Rachel’s maiden name – Price – another boon (after much discussion on the NB genealogy Facebook group).
There are not many Wallace Taylors before John’s birth date but there were the well-loved ministers of the James Wallace family. Deacon David Wallace’s daughter Julia did marry a John Stone Taylor but I haven’t yet looked into that family in any real way. John Wallace presided over John and Susannah’s marriage. All of this is still circumstantial and undocumented.