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Maureen Alice Taylor | |
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| Occupation | Photo historian |
| Known for | genealogy |
Maureen Alice Taylor, born April 14, 1956, is a genealogist, author, and speaker in Providence, Rhode Island with expertise in genealogy, art history, costume history and cultural anthropology. She is a blogger, and author of many books and magazine articles. The Wall Street Journal named her the "nation's foremost historical photo detective." [1]
Taylor holds a B.A. and an M.A. in history from Rhode Island College. She discovered a portrait of Dorothy Catherine Draper from 1839, which she believes to be the first American family photo. [2] She has been widely featured in US national print media and television, including The Today Show , The View , the Boston Globe and MSNBC. [3]
Taylor is the author of a guide to family history for children, Through the Eyes of Your Ancestors (Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Voice of Youth Advocacy named Through the Eyes of Your Ancestors to its best nonfiction list for 1999. "Taylor works with children as young as second grade to create simple family trees or charts. But give the kids a wealth of art supplies, she says, and kids will come up with their own creative expressions." [4]
Taylor worked for the Rhode Island Historical Society, The New England Historic Genealogical Society, and Houghton Mifflin. She is a former president of the Rhode Island Genealogical Society.
Taylor is the author of 11 books and an active blogger. She also acts as contributing editor to Family Tree Magazine .
Taylor's work includes:
Joint author:
Contributing author pieces:
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Philip Sherman (1611–1687) was a prominent leader and founding settler of Portsmouth in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Coming from Dedham, Essex in southeastern England, he and several of his siblings and cousins settled in New England. His first residence was in Roxbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he lived for a few years, but he became interested in the teachings of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, and at the conclusion of the Antinomian Controversy he was disarmed and forced to leave the colony. He went with many followers of Hutchinson to establish the town of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, later called Rhode Island. He became the first secretary of the colony there, and served in many other roles in the town government. Sherman became a Quaker after settling in the Rhode Island colony, and died at an advanced age, leaving a large progeny.
William Hutchinson (1586–1641) was a judge in the Colonial era settlement at Portsmouth on the island of Aquidneck. Aquidneck Island was known at the time as Rhode Island, and it later became part of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
John Coggeshall Sr. was one of the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the first President of all four towns in the Colony. He was a successful silk merchant in Essex, England, but he emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632 and quickly assumed a number of roles in the colonial government. In the mid-1630s, he became a supporter of dissident minister John Wheelwright and of Anne Hutchinson. Hutchinson was tried as a heretic in 1637, and Coggeshall was one of three deputies who voted for her acquittal. She was banished from the colony in 1638, and the three deputies who voted for her acquittal were also compelled to leave. Before leaving Boston, Coggeshall and many other Hutchinson supporters signed the Portsmouth Compact in March 1638 agreeing to form a government based on the individual consent of the inhabitants. They then established the settlement of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, one of the four towns comprising the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Cluster genealogy is a research technique employed by genealogists to learn more about an ancestor by examining records left by the ancestor's cluster. A person's cluster consists of the extended family, friends, neighbors, and other associates such as business partners. Researching the lives of an ancestor's cluster leads to a more complete and more accurate picture of the ancestor's life.
William Arnold was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and he and his sons were among the wealthiest people in the colony. He was raised and educated in England where he was the warden of St. Mary's, the parish church of Ilchester in southeastern Somerset. He immigrated to New England with family and associates in 1635. He initially settled in Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but he soon relocated to the new settlement of Providence Plantation with Roger Williams. He was one of the 13 original proprietors of Providence, appearing on the deed signed by Roger Williams in 1638, and was one of the 12 founding members of the first Baptist church to be established in America.
John Cranston (1625–1680) was a colonial physician, military leader, legislator, deputy governor and governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations during the 17th century.
The Arnold family is an American political and military family with ties to New England, Georgia and Ohio. The descendants of American Revolutionary War general Benedict Arnold in Great Britain, while not particularly politically active, also achieved notable success in the 19th century.
William Carpenter was a co-founder of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, born about 1610, probably in Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. He died September 7, 1685, in the Pawtuxet section of Providence, now in Cranston, Rhode Island. He was listed by 1655 as a "freeman" of the colony.
Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, born October 9, is an American genealogist, author, and speaker. She is also a consultant for the FBI and NCIS.
Stukely Westcott was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and one of the original members of the first Baptist Church in America, established by Roger Williams in 1638. He came to New England from the town of Yeovil in Somerset, England and first settled in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but difficulties with the authorities prompted him to join Roger Williams in settling near the Narragansett Bay in 1638 at Providence Plantations. He remained there for a few years, but he was recorded as an inhabitant of Warwick in 1648, probably having settled there several years earlier. He was most active in colonial affairs from 1650 to 1660 when he was a commissioner, surveyor of highways, and the keeper of a house of entertainment. His highest offices were as an Assistant in 1653 and much later as a deputy to the General Court in 1671 when he was almost 80 years old. He made his will on January 12, 1677, but died the same day with it unsigned, leaving his affairs in limbo for the following two decades.
John Greene Jr. was a deputy governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations who spent almost his entire adult life in the public service of the colony. Born in England, he was the son of John Greene Sr. and Joan Tattersall, and sailed to New England with his parents in 1635 aboard the ship James. His father, after coming from Massachusetts to Providence, became one of the original settlers of Warwick. In 1652 Greene served in his first public role as a commissioner from Warwick, and served in some public capacity every year until 1690 when he was first chosen as deputy governor of the colony. He then served 10 consecutive one-year terms in this capacity, retiring from public service in 1700 at the age of 80. He was one of the 10 Assistants named in the Royal Charter of 1663, which would become the basis for Rhode Island's government for nearly two centuries. During the devastating events of King Phillips War, Greene was one of 16 prominent inhabitants of the colony whose counsel was sought by the General Assembly.
John Greene Sr. was an early settler of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one of the 12 original proprietors of Providence, and a co-founder of the town of Warwick in the colony, sailing from England with his family in 1635. He first settled in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but he had difficulty with the Puritan authority and soon followed Roger Williams to Providence, becoming one of the original proprietors of that town. In 1643, he joined Samuel Gorton and ten others in purchasing land that became the town of Warwick. Difficulties with Massachusetts ensued, until he accompanied Gorton on a trip to England where they secured royal recognition of their town.
John Coggeshall Jr. was a deputy governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The son of Rhode Island President John Coggeshall Sr., he was raised in the village of Castle Hedingham in northeastern Essex where his father was a merchant. Aged about eight, he sailed from England with his parents and surviving siblings, arriving in New England in 1632. He was first active in civil affairs in 1653 when he became treasurer of the island towns of Portsmouth and Newport. The following year brought the re-unification of the colony, with the island towns rejoining the government with Providence and Warwick, and he served as treasurer of the four towns for a year. His name appears on a list of Newport freemen in 1655, and for the following 35 years he served almost continuously in one or multiple roles including Assistant, General Treasurer, Deputy, General Recorder, and Major for the Island. He was one of ten Assistants named in the Royal Charter of 1663, which would become the basis for Rhode Island's government for nearly two centuries. In 1686 he became the Deputy Governor under Governor Walter Clarke, but his term lasted only a month when the English crown assigned Edmund Andros to be Governor of all the New England colonies under the Dominion of New England. Following the demise of this dominion and the arrest of Andros in 1689, Coggeshall was once again selected as Deputy Governor for the year ending in May 1690, serving under Governor Henry Bull. In April 1676, during King Philip's War, he was on a committee to procure boats for the colony's defense. Later that year, in August, he was a member of a court martial for the trial of several Indians.
Thomas Hazard was one of the nine founding settlers of Newport on Aquidneck Island in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He settled in Boston and Portsmouth before settling Newport, but later returned to Portsmouth. His descendants include Commodores Oliver Hazard Perry and Matthew C. Perry and three colonial Rhode Island deputy governors.
John Throckmorton, Gent. (1601–1684) was an early settler of Providence Plantation in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and he was one of the 12 original proprietors of that settlement. He emigrated from Norfolk, England to settle in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but religious tensions brought about his removal to Providence.
Thomas Hopkins (1616–1684) was an early settler of Providence Plantations and the great grandfather of brothers Esek Hopkins, the only Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War, and Stephen Hopkins who was many times colonial governor of Rhode Island and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Richard Scott (1605–1679) was an early settler of Providence Plantations in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He married Katherine Marbury, the daughter of Reverend Francis Marbury and sister of Puritan dissident Anne Hutchinson. The couple emigrated from Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, England with an infant child to the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he joined the Boston church in August 1634. By 1637, he was in Providence signing an agreement, and he and his wife both became Baptists for a time. By the mid-1650s, the Quaker religion had taken hold on Rhode Island, and Scott became the first Quaker in Providence.
John Whipple was an early settler of Dorchester in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who later settled in Providence in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, where the family became well established.
John Cole (1715–1777) was a lawyer who became the 12th Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, serving from 1764 to 1765. Following his short tenure as Chief Justice, he became a Providence legislator, and Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Deputies. In this role he was on a committee to draft instructions to Providence citizens in regards to protesting the egregious Stamp Act passed by the British parliament to tax the American colonists. During the lead up to the American Revolutionary War Cole was privy to the plan and execution of the burning of the British revenue schooner Gaspee that ran aground near Pawtuxet, Rhode Island. He was deeply complicit with Stephen Hopkins and other leading Providence citizens in withholding evidence from the British commission of inquiry that was established to find the instigators of the Gaspee Affair. After a year of collecting testimonies, the court dissolved, having failed to indict a single person. In 1775 Cole became the Advocate General of Rhode Island's Vice Admiralty Court, but died of smallpox just two years later.
