Surname Saturday: Love

LOVE

The LOVE family name originates in Scotland. They are a sept of the Clan MacKinnon. A sept is an English word for a division of a family, especially a division of a clan. [1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sept] There is a section of my Clans and Families of Scotland book dedicated to Clan MacKinnon. I will just hit a few points for you:

1. Clan Motto: Audentes fortuna juvat (Gaelic: Fortune favours the bold)
2. Clan Slogan: Cuimhnich bás Ailpein (Gaelic: Remember the death of Alpin)
3. The MacKinnons are a branch of Clan Alpin and claim descent from the great-grandson of Alpin, King of Scots.
4. The Clan fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

My Love Branch

Unfortunately, I haven’t found connections back to the actual clan yet. My first Love ancestor is Andrew Love (born: abt 1803). My first record of him is when he marries Agnes Hamilton in Kilmarnock, Scotland in 1828. I haven’t viewed this record myself yet. Their names do match up with the ‘Diner Tree’ I’ve been working on, so I’m just piecing things together until I can get the Microfilms ordered and start collecting the actual birth records. So on a scale of 0-3, 3 being very reliable; I would mark this as a 1. It could really go either way for this record.

My next records are the birth of their children Thomas and Jean Love. Their births are recorded at Paisley Abbey, Scotland. They however are the same reliability factor as the marriage record. So I documented these dates and am using them as a guideline. Andrew and Agnes had five children that I know about.

1. Andrew Love, born Feb 1832, Scotland; married Ellen Lessler
2. Thomas H Love, born 15 Feb 1838, Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, Scotland; married Christina
3. Jean Love, born 29 Jan 1841, Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, Scotland
4. Agnes Love, born about 1844, Scotland
5. William Wallace Love, 16 Feb 1846, Scotland (my 3rd Great-Grandfather); married Jennie Menzies

The family first shows up in America on July 3, 1854 when their ship arrives at New York from Glasgow. Missing from the voyage is the oldest child, Andrew. He was already in New York at this time having immigrated one year prior. What struck me with this is Thomas’ occupation being listed as ‘Grocer’. The Love family will be in the Grocery business for many generations starting from here. After arriving in America, Andrew and his brood will live with his oldest son Andrew in New York City at least until the 1860 United States Census. After 1860 everyone in the family starts migrating to New Jersey.

Andrew and Agnes lived in the Plainfield area of Union County, New Jersey until their deaths. Agnes in 1885 and Andrew in 1889. [2. Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths of New Jersey, 1848-1900] Their eldest son Andrew would marry Ellen Lessler and they’d have 5 chidren of their own. Their eldest Andrew R Love, was born in New York in 1860. Their next two, James and Margaret, were born in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Their youngest two children, Robert and Jennie, were born in New Jersey where the family finally settled in North Plainfield, Somerset County, New Jersey.

Andrew and Agnes’ son Thomas lived in New York until at least 1874, where his fifth child is born. His family would then settle in Westfield, Union County, New Jersey.I have no information on Andrew and Agnes’ daughters after they arrived in America. Jean/Jane disappears before the 1860 census and Agnes after it. Most likely they got married, I just haven’t found a record of marriage for them yet.

Andrew and Agnes’ youngest child, William Wallace Love, is my 3rd Great Grandfather. He was born 16 Feb 1846 in Scotland. He married Jennie Menzies in 1867, and they would have 11 children. Jennie Menzies-Love would die 17 Sep 1890 under suspicious circumstances. The story and family legend goes that they were both drunk and arguing when it went too far. No one knows how but Jennie ended up at the bottom of the stairs, dead. I’ve been told by another descendant that there are a bunch of newspaper articles chronicling the subsequent trial and acquittal of William Wallace Love. I haven’t found any of these articles yet, but I’m probably just not looking in the right papers. If it’s out there I’ll find it. Until then, this remains a family legend. William’s branch settled in Essex County, New Jersey with a few of them going to other places.

Here’s a map of the area the Loves settled in. As you can see, even though Plainfield and North Plainfield are in separate counties, they aren’t exactly far away from each other.

Love Family Links

• Love Family Tag on Misadventures of a Genealogist blog.
• Love Family in my website database, 39 and counting! I’ll be making sure all my documents are uploaded today.

Things I Wonder About the Loves

• Where did Jean and Agnes go? Did they also settle in New Jersey near their family?
• Were Kilmarnock and Paisley Abbey the family’s origin or were they just stopping points along the way to America?

What are my next steps?

• Of course my first step is obtaining birth records for William Wallace Love’s children.
• My second step is to find the marriage record for William W Love and Jennie Menzies.
• I really want to find the Newspaper Article chronicling the supposed trial. I think it happened in Essex County, NJ, but my contact says it made it to the major New York papers. We’ll see when I go to the library and search Newspaper Archive.
• I want to verify that Andrew and Agnes are in fact William’s parents. Tenuous census records do not make a solid connection, so if I can find his death certificate to confirm his parents, that’d be ace.
• I’d like to get back in contact with my Love relations. There were all descended from different children of William and Jennie and it’d be interesting to see what new stuff they’ve found!