Greetings Loy cousins and anyone else interested in Loy history!

This latest update was begun in the spring, but today being the first day of summer, it's become a Spring/Summer update. As you'll find, I've added several new items, such as the "Find in a Library" search. I'm also working on more images to add, both of photos and old newspaper clippings.

Here's what's been keeping me busy lately:

While working on a second edition book (really CD) of the family of my Martin Loy (to America 1741), I've been documenting each household from the earliest census (1790) to the latest (1930). Besides documentation, I'm transcribing each household listed there for each year. Through the "find in a library" search, I found several genealogy books and other materials I needed that are in libraries here in San Diego county. This week's events included a trolley trip to Chula Vista's library and a Coaster train trip to Carlsbad's library to view their genealogical sections after finding online listings for certain books. While there, I added more info to Loy family records.

As researchers of Martin Loy's son John may know, John's obituary (published 3 months after his death in Orange Co., NC) was in the Reading Adler, a newspaper in Reading, Berks Co., PA. It was said by Martin Loy family researchers of the pre-mid-1900s that the obituary was accidentally found by a researcher of another family and brought to others' attention. The name of that person was never given and no copies of the obituary have seemed to have surfaced, except for transcripts. While searching local "find in a library" holdings I discovered UCSD (University California San Diego) in La Jolla has a collection of the Reading Adler. However, the list of years available is neither in the "find in a library" nor the UCSD holdings database, so dates have to be consulted manually. Because it's not requested that often, these films are kept in a storage area, which have to be requested 24 hours in advance. It's been keeping me in suspense to know if John's 1840 obituary is in this collection! Those I viewed this week ran from 1796 to 1820, when it was called Der Readinger Adler,though I had requested to start with 1840. Currently, neither I nor the librarian know if there are years in this collection after 1820, just that unknown worker who has access to that mysterious storage area. ;-) As the library has multiple listings for this publication, there is hope the group of film with the 1840 obituary is there. In the years I've viewed already, it's interesting reading even though I've found no family members listed yet. The publication began entirely in German but I was informed in later years English was eventually added. I've wondered if John's obituary might have been in German, translated to English by the unnamed source. If it were originally in English, perhaps there was a German version printed as well. Glancing through the publication (I've read as far as 1799 until my next visit) I've come across one or two small ads in English, but the majority of the publication is German. This German publication is typical of English language papers of that day--made up of ads (a large quantity of that!), almanacs, and some community notices (deaths, marriages, births, etc.) though that was sporadic. Many community notices I saw were of those not residing in Reading, but even pertained to other states. There was a page dedicated to news from other cities around the world, apparently gleaned from the other cities' papers. Most of the "news" there ranged from one to five months old! It made me appreciate today's instant news and understand why John's obituary took so long to be published.

Keep watching for further updates!

DRW