| Summer 1999 | Vol. 2, No. 3 |
|---|
The Loughrey Family Association of America brought the century to a fitting close with our last reunion of the millenium, held this past June in Dubuque, Iowa.
The event was well attended, and included first time reunion participants Rose Marie and Clifford Petersen, Colleen O'Connor (daughter of Cheryl O'Connor), Jim Fuller (son of Vivian Loughrey Fuller and husband of LFA secretary/treasurer Lee Gartner, Deb Harder (daughter of past LFA president and new vice president Barb Samoore) and her husband, Paul Harder, Paul Nielsen (recently married to Delores B. Nielsen, formerly Delores B. Loughrey-Larson), and Dan Kegel (friend of LFA communications director Liz Fuller).
In addition to our traditional reunion events, this year's bash included a ride on a Mississippi River paddleboat, a dinner and optional gambling aboard a riverboat casino, and a private hospitality suite, where attendees could gather, spread out collections of photos and genealogy data, receive demonstrations of our new website and chat list, and just sit and talk until late in the evening. (This room was such a big hit that attendees have insisted it be repeated at Reunion 2001!)
The banquet on the reunion's final night also provided a couple of surprises. The first was the attendance of special guests Virgil and Janet Bries. Virgil is a great-grandson of Peter Bries, the man who, in 1854, bought the 120-acre farm near Dubuque that was owned by Peter Loughrey and his son James. Today, the land is still farmed by Virgil and his son, Carl.
The Brieses were invited by Bruce Samoore, who met them when he went looking for the old Loughrey property. At the banquet, Virgil Bries gave Bruce copies of photos of the five generations of Brieses who have owned the former Loughrey land. Bruce was thrilled with the gift and says, "I was so happy they were able to accept my invitation!"
The second surprise of our event-ending banquet came when two reunion attendees graciously agreed, on the spur of the moment, to provide the evening's entertainment. Elizabeth Alvarez told a beautiful story about a mother and son, in both voice and American Sign Language...and Dan Kegel closed the evening by singing an a cappella solo of "The Blessing of St. Francis." Both earned enthusiastic applause for their talents...and kudos for being such good sports!
The biennial meeting of the Loughrey Family Association of America was held in June, 1999, at the Dubuque reunion.
President Bob Loughrey opened the meeting, welcomed the participants and made introductions.
Next, the minutes of the 1997 meeting and the treasurer's report were presented and accepted.
A unanimous motion was passed, thanking Delores B. Nielsen for all her efforts in getting the LFA up and running, for her work on the previous reunions and for the 450 pages of Loughrey family tree data she published through Broderbund's Family Tree Maker (available in their add on CD-ROM #8).
The next topic of discussion was the 2001 family reunion. Sites suggested included Omaha, Nebraska and a return to Sheffield, Illinois. No matter which site was selected, it was agreed that the hospitality room we had in Dubuque was a huge success and should be duplicated at our next location.
Bob reported nominations for association board positions, including:
All nominees were unanimously elected.
Bob also announced that our other Board Members at Large, Dave and Alice Rhoda, will fill out their four-year term, which ends in 2001...and he thanked reunion planners Doug and Tawnia Loughrey, and outgoing Board Members at Large Kay Lamoreaux and George Rose, for their service.
The following appointments were announced:
Liz Fuller reported on communications activity, including moving the website to a less expensive hosting service, the website redesign and expanded content, and the creation of the new e-mail chat list.
The meeting was adjourned.
Several photocopied packets of Loughrey family information were distributed at the Dubuque reunion, and we have copies of each left over. If you would like any or all of the following, please call Lee Gartner at (612) 825-1449, or e-mail her at [email protected]:
Copies of our formal group photo, taken at the 1999 Dubuque reunion, are now available for purchase. Prices are $12 for 5 x 7 prints and $15 for 8 x 10 prints. To place an order, contact Lee Gartner at (612) 825-1449 or [email protected]
Due to the increasing costs of duplicating and mailing, we will no longer be able to afford to mail print versions of all issues of The Loughrey Lines to all persons on our mailing list.
Beginning with our next issue, Autumn, 1999, we will mail hard copies of this newsletter only to paid members of the Loughrey Family Association. (A membership form and dues information is available at the bottom of this newsletter.) If you are a currently paid member of the LFA, please don't worry -- you will continue to receive your mailings as usual. If you are not a paid member, however, this is the last quarterly mailing you will receive. (Note, however, that if budgets do permit, we may send one issue per year to everyone on our mailing list, just to stay in touch...and as always, both members and non-members may continue to read all issues of The Loughrey Lines online - same content, different layout - free of charge.)
If you are not sure whether or not your dues are up to date, please check your mailing label (a "99" or "00" indicates which year your dues are paid through; no numerical code indicates you are not currently an LFA member). If you aren't currently an LFA member, we hope you'll consider joining or renewing now, so you don't miss out on any valuable Loughrey news!
Dear Everyone (and especially Members of the LFA):
The 1999 reunion in Dubuque was a very good "family" reunion. The members were very interested in finding out about our relationships and - thanks to the wonderful hospitality room arranged by our event organizers - we were able to display family books and pictures and exchange information to an extent never before experienced at one of our gatherings. The more knowledgeable family genealogy experts were more than willing to help, and spent a lot of time sharing their information.
The reunion in general was very well organized by our planning committee. Unfortunately, two of the committee members who did much of the work - Doug and Tawnia Loughrey - were unable to attend. Their son, Hayden, who was 8 months old at the time, was very ill so they had to miss the party. Happily, Tawnia reports Hayden's doing better now, and we hope he continues to recover.
Elections of new LFA officers also went very smoothly. I will remain LFA president for another two years, and Barb Samoore, our new vice president, will also serve as coordinator of Reunion 2001 (be sure to read her new "Coordinator's Corner" update column, below!). Barb will be lining up her own committees, and the first task is choosing a reunion location. Omaha, Princeton, IL, Ohio and Pennsylvania have all been mentioned, but if you have a preference - or another suggestion entirely - please contact Barb ([email protected]) as soon as you can.
For the next two years, I have several goals for this organization. First of all, I would love to see our membership grow to the point that our member dues adequately support our reunion planning efforts, this newsletter and our website, which are all very valuable to Loughrey family members. If you've been putting off joining the LFA or renewing an expired membership, please take a few moments now to support the family by paying your dues. Communications Director Liz Fuller is doing a wonderful job with this newsletter, our website and our new e-mail chat list...and when people see what these new tools can do for our organization, I hope we'll at least double our membership.
Second, I'm hoping we'll soon make some new discoveries in our Loughrey history. We have now located descendants of James Loughrey, Sr.'s three sons, James, Jr., John and Amos, so our next quest is to learn more about James' daughter, Elizabeth, of whom we know almost nothing so far. Also, after long suspecting some family ties, I hope we'll soon begin to find the links between our Loughrey ancestors and lines such as the Loughrys (see below), Loghrys, Lougharys and others. With the new vistas opening to us via the Internet, this seems to be a very realistic - and very exciting - possibility.
Finally, I just want to say that this is a terrific organization, and I'm looking really looking forward to the next two years as your leader.
Love,
Bob Loughrey
(Editor's Note: Starting with this issue, we'll include an update on future reunion plans, penned by Reunion 2001 coordinator Barb Samoore, in each edition of the Loughrey Lines.)
Two possible sites for the 2001 reunion were suggested at the general meeting in Dubuque in June. One was the Omaha area - which excites descendants of Andrew Loughrey - and the other was a return to Sheffield, IL. Bruce and I made a trip to the Sheffield-Princeton area this summer and were really appalled at the demise of the towns. There was no suitable facility in either location, so we'd probably have to base our reunion in Moline, IL...about a 40-mile drive from Sheffield.
We plan to meet with several motel managers in Council Bluffs, IA, on the 20th of September, and we'll report to the board on October 10th, when we hope to finalize the reunion location. As for other preparations, I have appointed several reunion chairpersons and am working on coming up with some new dreams and schemes. I'm completely open to any suggestions, however, so if anyone has ideas for our next gathering, please e-mail me at [email protected]. In the meantime, I'd like to ask all Loughreys to reserve the third weekend in June, 2001 for our next reunion. We'll twist your arms to get you there...but I can guarantee we'll have so much fun!
Until next time,
Barb
Samoore
Reunion 2001 Coordinator
In June, the site was redesigned to add a variety of new information, including a description of the LFA, membership information, instructions for joining our e-mail chat list, a guestbook for visitors to post messages and inquiries for other Loughreys, and a long list of links to other websites that contain general genealogy information, specialized research databases, resources for surname research, resources for Irish genealogy research, helpful genealogy hints and techniques, genealogy publications, and various genealogy products and services available on the Internet.
About the same time, we also launched our free e-mail chat list, open to anyone interested in discussing Loughrey family history. The list is growing fast and now has more than 30 subscribers, who communicate with each other through a single, convenient e-mail address. Discussions and inquiries on this list have already resulted in answers to several pressing research questions for various members, who also enjoy chatting with their Loughrey cousins on an almost daily basis. We invite any and all Loughrey family members and friends to join our conversations, post Loughrey research questions, or simply listen in. Just go to http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/lfa and click on "subscribe to this list!"
Finally, within the next few weeks, our website will be expanding yet again, and we'll go from our simple one-page design to a more comprehensive, more flexible multi-page format that will allow us to add a great deal of new content. New features will include the article on the Loughrey family coat of arms which appears in this newsletter, a reunion page containing the very latest updates and information for our next event, a Loughrey family photo gallery (containing both historical photos and recent shots from reunions and other family events), a page where Loughrey researchers can post queries for "Lost Loughreys" (missing links in their family histories), an easier-to-use format for our ever-expanding list of genealogy links, and a password-protected area where currently paid members of the LFA can access the LFA member directory. Finally, last but definitely far from least, we'll also display our new combined family tree (see "The Big Tree Project," below), which will be viewable and searchable in several different ways.
The Loughrey website changes frequently, so if you're online and haven't checked in recently, please visit again soon! And if you're not online yet, but have been thinking about making the leap into cyberspace, this would be the perfect opportunity to do so, so you can take advantage of the very latest advances in Loughrey communications technology.
As noted above, one new and highly anticipated feature of the redesigned Loughrey website (now under construction) will be a large Loughrey family tree, which compiles information from as many different branches of the Loughrey family as we can find.
Webmaster Liz Fuller is coordinating the "Big Tree" project, and has so far collected and merged family tree data from Bruce Samoore, Mary Hagen, Lee Gartner, Robin Riley Sloan, Mary Saban, Jackie Schattner and Larry Gould...which creates a database that now contains more than 8,000 Loughreys, Loughrey descendants, and families of folks who married into the Loughrey line (including Carrell/Carrolls, Rileys, etc.).
When the Big Tree is done, all the information it contains will be made available in several ways. First, it will be posted on the Loughrey website, at http://www.loughrey.org, in two different forms. One version, publicly available to anyone with a web browser, will contain only deceased Loughreys. This will give casual visitors to our site a good sense of our family history, and a chance to see where their own families might connect to ours in past generations...while still protecting the privacy and identities of our living members and relatives. For currently paid members of the LFA, however, there will be a second version of the Big Tree on the website, available only to those with a special password (which will be provided when dues are paid, and will be changed each year). This password-protected version of the site will include all Loughreys, both past and present, and will be the most complete resource currently available for tracing Loughrey connections, relatives and history. (And, just for fun, the site will include a "relationship calculator," which can tell you, instantly, just what your exact relationship is to any other person listed in the Big Tree.)
Note, however, that while both versions of the Big Tree displayed on the website will be searchable in several different ways, and the information there can be displayed in several different formats, the data will not be downloadable. Currently paid members of the LFA, however, will also be eligible to receive a free, downloadable and fully functional version of the Big Tree GEDCOM file, which you'll be able to use, update or change just as you would any other GEDCOM file you compile yourself (though we hope anyone who adds to it will also send us their additions, so we can keep the Big Tree growing!).
If you have family tree files you would like to contribute to the Big Tree Project, please contact coordinator Liz Fuller. GEDCOM, Family Tree Maker files or electronic text files can be e-mailed to [email protected], or you can mail photocopies of Family Group Sheets or other printed information to 903 S. Sycamore Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036.
Also, if your LFA dues are up to date (yes, we will check!), and you'd like a copy of the Big Tree GEDCOM file when it's complete, please e-mail Liz at [email protected], and we'll put you on the distribution list.
In 1965, Julia Loughrey Ribbens received a copy of her uncle Peter Loughrey's "Story of the Loughrey Clan," and an accompanying letter containing the "blazon" for the Loughrey coat of arms (a "blazon" describes the various graphic elements of a shield or crest in such a way that they can be correctly rendered). It read:
"Gules on fess between three horses courant argent, three annulets azure. Crest: a wolf's head erazed ermine."
A few years later, Julia decided to give a coat of arms and crest to each of her Lee Loughrey family members, and had a potter friend create earthenware plates from this rather cryptic historical description. Later, however, Julia learned there were some mistakes in her graphic interpretations, and she set out to create a more accurate rendering.
"My real study began," Julia says, "when my husband gave me the book "Heraldry," by Julian Franklin. As I delved more deeply, I returned, vicariously, to the land of our Loughrey ancestors, back to the Middle Ages, back to the time of the Norman kings, when their heralds served as messengers for their noble households. I imagined the Heralds arranging the jousting tournaments, which were the aristocratic (equivalent of) football matches, the mock battles of the Middle Ages...when the heralds must identify themselves with a picture painted on their shields."
As Julia continued her reading, she learned more about the Middle Ages, and finally deciphered the detailed meanings of the terms used in the Loughrey blazon. They include:
"Gules" - The color red; usually vermillion.
"Fess" - A broad horizontal band drawn across the center of the shield.
"Three horses courant" - Horses running at full speed, usually shown with fore-legs stretched in front and hind legs together in the rear (despite the fact that this position is anatomically impossible).
"Argent" - The metal silver, which is usually represented as white.
"Three Annulets Azure" - Annulets are rings (generally used as the mark of a fifth son). Azure is the color blue.
"Crest" - The element atop the coat of arms, which may originally have been used only to denote persons of a certain rank or nobility.
"Erazed" - Torn off roughly to leave a jagged edge.
"Ermine" - One of the principle furs used in heraldry, which consists of black ermine tails drawn on a white field. (The term "Ermines," on the other hand, would mean the opposite: white tails on a black field.)
Julia's extensive reading on heraldry also taught her that the original heraldic laws of the United States were adopted from the British, who always turn their crests, and all the symbols (charges) on them, to the viewer's left (sinister)...that color on color, or metal on metal, was never used in the placement of the various elements...and that the use of "esquire helmets" is advised.
Newly equipped with these helpful details, Julia went back to work, and created the Loughrey coat of arms that we use today. The design has been adapted several times for use on the T-shirts we sell at our biennial Loughrey reunions, and Julia has also published her study of Loughrey heraldry in a pamphlet, "Loughrey - Our Complete Achievement," which she will gladly provide to interested members of the Loughrey Family Association.
According to family lore, at least several Loughrey descendants and relatives, including several Rileys and Benjamin McCloud, traveled to California for extended periods during the famous gold rush days of the 19th century (whether they mined gold or not, however, no one seems to know). We have also learned, tantalizingly, that there is a Loughrey (Loughry? Loghry?) Woods in Castle Rock State Park near San Francisco, named for the family that owned the land in the early 20th century.
Liz Fuller, editor of The Loughrey Lines, would love to learn more about Loughreys in early California, and hopes to publish a story on this fascinating topic in our "History Page" in the near future. If you have information, stories and/or photos (copies or scans only please, no originals!) of Loughreys who traveled to California in the mid-1800s, please send them to Liz at [email protected] or 903 S. Sycamore Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90036
Don Laughrey, a descendant of John Nash Laughrey who lives Minneapolis, wrote to ask if anyone knows how - and can document when - the Loughrey/Laughrey spelling split took place. If anyone has an answer, please e-mail Don at [email protected].
Rose Marie Petersen writes that she found several Lowerys among the 1897 membership of the Boone County (Missouri) Old Settler's Association. This membership list can be found online at http://synapse.com/bocomogenweb/SETTLERS.HTM
Rose Marie has also learned that an "L. A. Carroll" took photos of the double 50th wedding anniversary party held in 1914 for Lucinda Mills (daughter of Garner Mills and Martha Loughery) and her husband Lars Petersen...and Lucinda's brother Edward Mills and his wife, Mary Rhinard. The celebration was a family dinner at the Danish Brotherhood hall in Sheffield, IL in May 1914. Rose Marie would love to locate the photos of this significant family event, but the only "L. A. Carroll" in our records is Leroy Ardell Carroll, son of Andrew Carroll and Mary Elizabeth Batten, who died in 1953. According to our records so far, Leroy and his wife, Emma Unruh, had no children...but Rose Marie has also located a copy of the July 7, 1911 Sheffield Times which reports that "Maud Carroll" was visiting her father, Leroy, from Chicago. Also, although the only sister we show for Leroy was Mary E. Carroll, who died in infancy, a story in the August 20, 1908 Times reported that a "Mrs. C.A. Waters" fell off a rocking chair while visiting her "brother," Leroy Carroll. If anyone knows more about the Leroy Carroll family, or of any Carroll descendants who might still have some of Leroy's photos from the big 1914 anniversary party, please contact Rose Marie at [email protected]
Mary Saban writes that she found the family of a W. E. Laughrey in the 1885 Iowa state census for Pottawattamie County (Boomer Precinct). The family and household included eight people including W. E., a 46-year-old farmer, born in Pennsylvania, 33-year-old wife Rose, 14-year-old son Charles, 12-year-old son James, 10-year-old daughter Maggie, 8-year-old daughter Rose, 4-year-old son Joseph and 2-year-old daughter Lula. (Note: our current family tree compilation shows no "W.E. Laughreys," so if anyone knows how this Laughrey may fit into our lines, please contact Liz Fuller at [email protected])
Antoinette Grigg wrote from New Zealand to say: "My partner has the surname Loughrey and at present all Loughreys in New Zealand are related. We know extremely little except that great grandfather Richard came from London." Antoinette can be reached at [email protected] and would love to hear from other Loughreys who might be able to fill in some of the Loughrey history.
Jackie Schattner, of Palatine, IL, is looking for information on the family of James Riley and Sarah Dunbar, and on the sons of Benjamin McCloud and Jemima (Jamima?) Riley (daughter of James Riley, granddaughter of Paul (Ryland) Riley and Elizabeth Loughrey). If anyone else is interested in this line of the family, Jackie also has a biography of Benjamin and his second wife, detailing his trip to the California gold rush, which she'd be happy to share. Jackie can be reached at (847) 991-2034.
John H. Loughrey, who lives in Pennsylvania, wrote to say that he's descended from a line of Loughreys that migrated from Ireland to Canada and then down into northern New York, near Niagara Falls, where his father was born in the early 1900s. An 1885 census shows John's great, great grandfather, also named John H. Loughrey, living with his wife Hanna Hamilton, in Hannibal, Oswega County, New York. John's great grandfather, yet another John H. Loughrey (!), was married to a woman named Catherine McCabe. John is wondering whether or not his Loughrey family and ours intersect at any point. So far, we haven't been able to find a connection, but if anyone has any information for John, please write him at [email protected]
A similar request comes from Charles O. Laughary, Jr., who writes that his great grandfather was John Charles Laughary, who was born in Virginia in 1850. If anyone has information that might connect the Loughreys to the Laugharys, you can reach Charles at [email protected]
Duncan Loughrey signed into our website guestbook from the United Kingdom, to say that his ancestors were also from northern Ireland, but that he knows no more than this about the family. You can write to Duncan at [email protected]
Recently, we were contacted (independently) by Hampton Loughry and Elizabeth Kennedy, both of whom descend from Jeremiah Loughry, who was born in Derry County, Ireland, migrated to the U.S. in the early 1700s, and died in 1749. Jeremiah lived in the same part of Pennsylvania our Loughrey ancestors settled in, and later moved to West Virginia. In fact, the parallels to our Loughrey lines are similar enough that Elizabeth speculates Jeremiah Loughry and James Loughrey, Sr. may have been brothers.
But Hampton and Elizabeth aren't the only ones looking for a connection. The descendants of Jeremiah Loughry are the same group that hold an annual reunion in West Virginia...which Loughrey Family Association president Bob Loughrey, and his son Dick Loughrey, have just attended for the second year in a row. Bob reports:
"Dick and I attended the 70th annual reunion of the Loughrys of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. This was our second time there, so we felt quite at home with people we met last year. The reunion is held every year on the fourth Sunday in August. The picnic grounds are on the bank of the Cheat River, and are part of the Loughry Estate on Cheat Mountain. Far up above the picnic area, on the side of the mountain, is a church which has a Loughry minister.
This is such a wonderful group - lots of food and a meeting with election of officers and pictures. They catalog over 9,000 members in the families, and all are listed in a new book, "The Descendants of Jeremiah Loughry." We now have a copy for the LFA files.
On this same trip, Dick and I also visited the courthouses and historical societies in both Bucks County and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania...and the graveyard and church in Gettysburg where Jeremiah Loughry is buried. Although we still suspect that the Loughreys and Loughrys are related, however, we still have not yet found the link between our two family lines."
More information on the descendants of Jeremiah Loughry is available at http://home.naxs.com/don/. If anyone learns more about possible ties between Jeremiah Loughry and James Loughrey, Sr., please contact Bob Loughrey at [email protected], Liz Fuller at [email protected], Hampton Loughry at [email protected], and Elizabeth Kennedy at [email protected]
Please help! We've lost touch with the following LFA members and friends, and no longer have valid mailing addresses. If you know how we can reach any of these folks, please contact LFA secretary/treasurer Lee Gartner at (612) 825-1449, 4947 Garfield Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN, 55409, or [email protected] :
| Name | Last Known City |
| Anderson, Jesse | Bellevue, WA |
| Ayers, Maurice II | Nashville, TN |
| Beecroft, Edward C. | Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada |
| Blake, Jack | Julesberg, CO |
| Blake, Jimmy Lee | |
| Clark, Bernice | |
| Clark, Jennifer | Palm Desert, CA |
| Cole, Allen | Minnetonka, MN |
| Cole, Allen | Tampa, FL |
| Cole, Carol | |
| Cole, Doris | Dover, MN |
| Daun, Thomas Jr. | |
| Duke, Dr. Thomas | |
| Freed, Kathryn | Omaha, NE |
| Howard, Anthony | Tijeras, NM |
| Kelly, Carla | Willard, MO |
| Larson, Brian | Mesa, AZ |
| Loughrey, Amy Jo | Winfield, KS |
| Loughrey, Charles A. | |
| Loughrey, Duane | |
| Loughrey, Rolland | St. Paul, MN |
| Loughrey, William J., Jr. | |
| Loughrey, Archie W., Sr. | |
| MacAfee, James | Galva, IL |
| Mahoney, Georgia | West Valley City, UT |
| McBroom, Meredith | |
| Monahan, Kim | Chicago, IL |
| Nelson, Randy | |
| Olson, Duane | Sterling, CO |
| Rezac, Cheryl | |
| Ruhlberg, Brenda | |
| Spliethoff, Billy Joe | Red Bluff, CA |
| Taylor, Martha | Delray Beach, FL |
| Taylor, Martha | Southport, CT |
| Tonder, Michael | Little Falls, MN |
| Troke, Kim | |
| Wrinkle, David | |
| Wrinkle, John | Dallas, TX |
"Genealogy without documentation is mythology." -- Author Unknown
Yes, it's true - 1999 is almost over (already!), and it's time to renew your membership to the Loughrey Family Association of America, for the year 2000. As always, dues are $15 per household, and should be sent to LFA secretary/treasurer Lee Gartner.
Association dues are very important, and go entirely to fund mailings of this newsletter, maintain the Loughrey website, and plan our reunions. In exchange, members receive several benefits, including:
Volume 2, No. 3
Elizabeth Fuller
October 6, 1999
Copyright 1999, Loughrey Family Association of America.
Web design by Leaping Lizard Productions.