My Genealogy Blog

  James Weddle Taggart is my father's second great grandfather on my fathers paternal grandmother's side.  James Weddle Taggart was not simply an early Oregon settler who later fought in the Indian wars. He belonged to a family with a remarkable military history, and his own life connected the Mexican-American War, the settlement of southern Oregon, the mining frontier, and the early communities of Southern and Northern California. The most striking discovery is that James appears in the historical record as a participant in the Mexican-American War alongside his father, Captain James Taggart Jr. , who was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. A detailed history of Brown County, Indiana , describes the father's military service and death, while a separate roster of the Brown County volunteers includes James W. Taggart among the soldiers. 1. A young man from a military family James Weddle Taggart was born on April 17, 1824, in Nashville, Brown County, India...

  This story is about Pearl Miller . She was the sister of my maternal grandmother.  Some family stories begin with a name in a family tree. Others begin with a question that refuses to go away. Pearl’s story involves both. She was born into a family whose public history identified Sherman Andrew Miller as her father. But as the years passed, questions arose about her biological origins. Who was her father? Why had her mother married Sherman when she did? And how much could we ever know about the circumstances surrounding Pearl’s birth? Research eventually led to the Devine family. DNA evidence confirmed the connection—but it did not solve every part of the mystery. A marriage surrounded by questions Pearl was born on September 30, 1906 in San Francisco. Her mother, Zua , had married Sherman Andrew Miller on April 7 of that same year. Zua was only 19, and Pearl’s birth came less than six months after the wedding. The timing tells us that Zua was already pregnant when she marri...