GENEALOGY CHALLENGE 2021 - Religious/Church Record

 

GENEALOGY CHALLENGE

Religious or Church Record - January 7th entry of a 31-day challenge to post a document, photo or artifact on social media every day in January.

by Nancy Gilbride Casey

 

In my recent quest to document my husband's lineage to Mayflower passenger Isaac Allerton, I needed to find a marriage record for his 3x great grandparents in the line, Edwin A. Taylor and Minerva Cushman Taylor. From previous research, it was known that the couple married in Clarendon, Rutledge, Vermont on 19 Oct. 1854, but where that actual record was located was not known.¹

Part of the research process is to create a locality guide of resources which might answer a research question. In this case, I needed to look at which civil or church records might be available either online or in physical archives in or near Clarendon. 

The Taylors were Congregationalist, so that helped narrow down my search for resources, and I happened upon the name of The Brick Church, a successor church to the Congregational Church of Clarendon, founded in 1822. In a lucky stroke, The Brick Church had a Facebook page. So, I sent a message on that platform to inquire if they had marriage records from the older church. The answer astounded me!

Not only did they have records, but the staff quickly sent me a PDF of all the pages in their records which referred to the couple. This included documentation of their membership in the church as a couple, as of September 1855;² the baptisms of their two eldest sons, William D. Taylor,³ and Frederick M. Taylor;⁴ and the couple's request for letters of dismission to another church in 1866.⁵ 

Edwin A. Taylor and Minerva C. Taylor, shown as members in Sept. 1855
of the Congregational Church in Clarendon.

Baptisms of William Darwin (1862, July) and Frederick Morris Taylor (1864), recorded in Congregational Church in Clarendon records.

Along with other evidence, these records helped me establish the marriage of Edwin and Minerva, their relationship to William and Frederick, and by extension, the couple's role as parents to Henry Orlando Taylor—William and Frederick's younger brother, and my husband's 2x great grandfather in this line—a crucial link in the proof of a Mayflower lineage. 

Ultimately my quest was successful, and James Dale Casey, Jr. was officially recognized by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants as a descendant of Isaac Allerton in July 2020.⁶

NEXT UP: Military Record (Technical difficulties prevented this post today, so postponing to Jan. 7.)

¹ Membership application, Helen Frances Daines, no. 35,750, General Society of Mayflower Descendants, Office of the Historian General, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
² Clarendon Congregational Church (Clarendon, Vermont), Membership Records Books, Book 1, p. 10, Edwin A. Taylor & Minerva C. Taylor, (Sept. 1855); The Brick Church, Clarendon.
³ Clarendon Congregational Church (Clarendon, Vermont), "Membership Records Books," Book 1, p. 106, Baptism of William Darwin Taylor, July 1862; The Brick Church, Clarendon.
⁴ Clarendon Congregational Church (Clarendon, Vermont), "Membership Records Books," Book 1, p. 106, Baptism of Frederick Morris Taylor, 1864; The Brick Church, Clarendon.
⁵ Clarendon Congregational Church (Clarendon, Vermont), "Records of the Congregational Church in Clarendon, Vermont, Vol. 2, from 1846," unnumbered, left hand page, last 2 lines, dismission of Edwin A. Taylor and Minerva C. Taylor; The Brick Church, Clarendon.
⁶ General Society of Mayflower Descendants, certificate 98024, James Dale Casey, Jr., descendant of Isaac Allerton, 28 July 2020.