James Taylor, of King & Queen County - Disputed origins

Evidence needed to support James Taylor, of King & Queen County as son of John Taylor & Elizabeth Taylor He’s been detached from these parents.

Research Notes

WikiTree contributors, "James Taylor I (abt.1642-1698)," WikiTree: The Free Family Tree, (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Taylor-679 : accessed 20 January 2024).

1. There is mention of a James Taylor as a headright of Leonard Chamberlain in a 1671 land patent in New Kent County, Virginia. This may have been James Taylor I. It fits the time period for James I, but there is no way to be certain. [5]

2. No reliable source has been found linking this James Taylor to the James Taylor who appears in church records of Carlisle England.

3. No reliable source has been found linking this James Taylor to the Dr. James Taylor who immigrated to Bermuda in 1635 aboard the ship "Truelove" and who appeared in The Original Lists of Persons of Quality, 1931, LDS film 476924; and Rappahannock County, Virginia records. [6]

4. The genealogy of the Taylor family published in Mary Taylor Brewer's From Log Cabins to the White House and in Stella Pickett Hardy's Colonial Families of the Southern States of America link this James Taylor to the Taylors of Carlisle, England and Pennington Castle. Neither book cites reliable sources for this information, and Brewer's early Taylor genealogy has been discounted by professional genealogists Nathaniel Lane Taylor and Kenneth Harper Finton.

5. The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence also claims, without citing any reliable source, that James Taylor's family came from Pennington Castle, near Carlisle, England; and that he was a descendant of Baron Taillefer who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and became the Earl of Pennington; but no reliable source is cited for this information. DSDI also reports (incorrectly) that "James Taylor arrived in Virginia in 1635 at the age of 20 and established the estate of Hare Forest on Chesapeake Bay between the James and North Rivers."

6. No reliable source has been found for this James Taylor having served in the Virginia House of Burgesses or as Surveyor General of Virginia.

7. There is no basis for the story that James Taylor I's home in New Kent and King and Queen counties was named "Hare Forest." The only recorded references to a Hare Forest are in Orange County, Virginia [7] which was not settled until 1734, long after James Taylor I's death. James's son James Jr./II helped survey Orange County and built a home there in 1722, but that home was named "Bloomsbury." The Taylor-Pendleton-Chenault Cemetery near Bowling Green, Virginia is sometimes referred to as "Hare Forest," but it lies some 30 miles north of where James Taylor I resided in New Kent County and the James and Mary Taylor buried there are not James Taylor I and Mary Gregory. [8] [9] [10]

8. There is a family tradition about an early James Taylor owning a seal ring that bore the Taylor coat of arms; [11] however there is no source that links that ring to this James Taylor I of New Kent and King and Queen Counties. [6]

9. This is not the incorrectly merged Dr. James Taylor (1608-1698) of Surry County, North Carolina who married Elizabeth Underwood. [12]

10. A previously linked father, John Taylor, is proven not this James Taylor's father since John Taylor's will leaves his estate to his "only heir", his daughter, Elizabeth. [13]