Taliaferro

Common card · No. 359311

The Taliaferro family ( TOL-iv-ər), also spelled Talliaferro, Tagliaferro, Talifero, Taliafero, Taliferro or Tellifero and sometimes fully anglicised to Tolliver or Toliver, is a prominent American family of Anglo-Italian descent in eastern Virginia and Maryland. The Taliaferros (originally Tagliaferro [taʎʎaˈfɛrro], which means 'Ironcutter' in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname in that line is believed to trace back to Bartholomew Taliaferro, a native of Venice and subject of the Doge of Venice, who settled in London and was made a denizen in 1562. The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, a colonial Virginia lawyer and classical scholar, who had married Elizabeth Taliaferro, the daughter of architect Richard Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate...

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