Taylor

Taylor - The surname Taylor is generally accepted to be of English origin. It is an occuptional name for a tailor. It is derived from the old French name tailleur itself from the Latin name taliator, which in turn is from taliare which means 'to cut'.[1]

This Taylor family emigrated first from Massachusetts to New York state, then to Michigan. This was a common migration pattern in the early and middle 1800's. As Ethel Williams described in her book Know Your Ancestors[2] - "Michigan is sometimes called the child of New York. With the completion of the Erie Canal in New York in 1925 settlers from New York and New England came pouring into southern Michigan, until, by 1937, two thirds of Michigan's population were New Yorkers and New Englanders and 85 per cent of the pioneers of southwestern Michigan were 'Yorkers'. The social customs of Michigan people simulate more closely those people of New York than of any other area. A look at Michigan place names indicates from where the first settlers came. For example, Michigan counties of Clinton, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Otsego, and Wayne all have their counterparts in New York State. Towns in New York and Michigan sharing names include in part: Ithaca, Utica, Flint, Marshall, Lansing, Mount Pleasant, Ovid, Rochester, St. Johns, Trenton, Vassar, Yale, Monroe, Lyons, Elmira, Baldwin, Albion, Charlotte, Brooklyn, Adrian, Cazenovia and Fenton. Michigan village and township place names read like a gazetteer of New York."

The genealogies detailed here are those that are descended from Madison Taylor. Although Madison was born in Michigan he and his family left Michigan in the mid 1880's and relocated in the Groton area of Brown County, South Dakota.

The name Taylor is very common in the United States, Certainly Madison, and all of his descendants are in some way related to other Taylor families. How these relationships exist is not the subject of these genealogies. Listed here are simply only those known genealogies of Madison and Lucia Taylor.

Go here for details on early Taylor family naming traditions and customs.