Having come under the jurisdiction of several countries, Taurage is known by several names: Taurage, Tauroggen, and Taurogi are just a few. Today Taurage is both the name of a county and a city in Lithuania.
The Taurage comes from tauras (meaning auroch) and ragas (meaning horn). Ragas was not too difficult, but I was confused by auroch. What confused me was a reference that linked the tauras to "forest giants." Wow, I thought could relatives of Sasquatch 
lived near our human relatives far across the water. So much for the romantic streak. I should have looked more closely at tauras. Yes, Taurus as in the Zodiac sign of the bull.
lived near our human relatives far across the water. So much for the romantic streak. I should have looked more closely at tauras. Yes, Taurus as in the Zodiac sign of the bull.With a little more research, I discovered the auroch is the prehistoric ancestor of our modern cattle. Cave men in France drew paintings of them on the walls of their caves and they survived until about the 1600s in Eastern Europe when the last surviving aurochs died in Poland.
Taurage's coat of arms displays the animal's horn which served multiple purposes in earlier times.
Joseph appears to have left the area quite early in the troubling times of the pogroms and ahead of much of the Jewish persecution which makes locating additional information on ancestors so difficult.
The quest continues.....
