Clara Taylor Bertling has long been an enigma of my genealogy research. I have been able to discover her mother, Clara Taylor, who appears on the 1850 census for Red River County, Texas with all of her children. No father is listed. What is Clara Taylor’s maiden name? And Taylor is such a common surname, it has been impossible to find the father, especially given that the 1840 census does not list family members’ names.

Clara’s siblings all have very common names, such as John, Elizabeth, and Jim. I have not been able to discover with certainty any of them after they move out of Clara Taylor’s house. Clara Taylor appeared on the 1860 census for Gonzales County, Texas, but I have been unable to locate her on the 1870 census anywhere in Texas. Nor have I found any record of death for her between 1860 and 1870.

A number of Clara Taylor Bertling’s descendants moved to Indian Territory, Oklahoma. Why? Was there a connection with her father’s family?

If you can provide any clues about Clara Taylor Bertling’s heritage, please contact me.

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Birdie and Sidney Thomas (2nd and 3rd from left front row). Beatrice Thomas Parker on far right. Late 1910s.

Photo courtesy Carol Prescott.

On June 3, 2010, Samuel and Elizabeth Brown were recognized at the Texas State Capitol in the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Family Land Heritage Ceremony!

Family Land Heritage recognizes families and their ancestors who have lived and worked on the same land for 100 years or more.

The farm, nine miles north of Flatonia in Fayette County, Texas, has been in the Brown family since 1881, when Nathan Brown bought the property from his mother and siblings (meaning the land had been in the family even prior to that year). Samuel Jenkins Brown received the property from his father as a wedding present. Marvin Leonard Brown inherited the property when Samuel died. Marvin’s son, Samuel Brown and his wife Elizabeth, presently own and live on the property.

Thanks to Johnilee “Dump” Biggs Osborn for her continuing efforts to preserve genealogical resources.

Download pages from Mary Crowell’s Bible, courtesy of Johnilee Osborn.



Dump and her husband David.

Bill Parker with his wife, Ruth Berg Parker, a lovely Norwegian,
from Minnesota.
Uncle Bill served in the Navy in World War II.
See Bill Parker’s Memorial.
Read more about the Parkers.