Loy-Allen Family
Formation of the family of Sam Loy and Anna Allen represents an improbable convergence of people hoping for better opportunities in the vicinity of Mound City, SD.
The Allen family that Anna was a part of came from the area around Blooming Valley, PA. Her maternal ancestors can be traced to colonial Connecticut by way of NY and PA. Her paternal ancestors trace back to Fabius, NY, but from there backward in time there is uncertainty. (See one of the "Mysteries" entries.) Anna seems to have been a kind soul as viewed by her grandchildren. And she was a good shot!
Sam's path to South Dakota was probably somewhat rocky and included a prior marriage to a lady (Margaret Rower) in Ohio which produced a son named William H. Loy, who became an undertaker in Auburn, IN. Sam's predecessors were Germanic in origin. His father emigrated in 1853 from near Pforzheim in Baden to near Prospect, Ohio, just after the 1848 Revolution in the German states. His mother was from a family that moved to near Waldo, OH, from PA in the middle of the 19th century. In 1860, Sam's father (John) and mother (Susannah) headed a family of 6 people, including a one year old Sam and siblings from John's former marriage to Sophia (Kaelber) Heidegger as well as the current marriage. Susannah may have died (or left the family) when Sam was fairly young, and his father relocated a little farther west in OH (Van Wert & Allen Counties) . It also appears that he married twice more, and he had cousins from the Baden area living in Crawford Co., OH. I have created a separate document to describe in some detail what is known about Sam's father, Johann Georg Lay, a.k.a. John Loy, in locations ranging from Göbrichen in Baden to Delphos, OH.
Tracing Susannah's family has been very challenging. Her parents (John and Catherine Snyder) were from PA and moved to OH in about 1833. They probably are the descendants of people who emigrated from the Rhein Palatinate to Pennsylvania. The details of their lives have largely eluded me, but you can read what I have found in a section devoted just to this topic.
The family group sheet for Sam and Anna is here. Ahnentafel reports for each can be found here. A fan chart centered on one of their children is here. A more traditional interactive pedigree chart centered on one of their children is here.
In the course of researching this family, I have assembled additional documentation, including source descriptions and photos. For example, there is an analysis of the locations of related families that relocated to Campbell Co., SD, late in the 19th century. I have also investigated the maternal (mtDNA) line that Anna represents. The analysis is in an accompanying section entitled "Tracing Ellen's mtDNA". Ellen is the likely name of the first person in this line to settle in the New Haven area of Colonial Connecticut around 1640. A general document providing some detailed source information is here.
Locations of Sam and Anna's families in the latter part of the 19th century are shown approximately in the period map that follows. The picture that follows shows the family probably sometime around 1910.
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