Monday, January 4, 2016

Lounsbury Family Line



Now that the dull roar of the holidays is behind us, I need to get back into the swing of things and start posting again in a regular way.  I see the formatting is still skewed. All I know is that it doesn’t look like that when I hit the ‘publish’ button. I will keep trying to figure it out!!

This family is known by several different spellings, i.e. Lounsbury, Lownsbury, Lonsbury, Lonsberry, Landsberry, Lownesborough, etc. The variant spellings may represent different branches of the same family and quite possibly do. Since spelling didn’t become standardized until the 1890’s, it was perfectly acceptable to spell a name several different ways within any given document, even legal ones. Many times the families were illiterate, not having much chance for schooling and didn’t know how to spell their names. So when a birth, marriage or death was reported to an authority, it was spelled the way the recording clerk thought it should be spelled. In the pursuit of tracing family lines back two or three centuries, it’s very important to include all variant spellings.

Richard Lounsbury, b. 1634. East Riding, York, England, emigrated c. 1651. Between 1673 and 1682 he lived at White Plains, NY. In 1684, he removed to Stamford CT, where he received an extensive grant of land. He then moved to Penn’s Neck, Westchester Co., NY where he lived till his death in 1694. His will was probated there. (Family Files – Genealogical Society of Bergen Co.)


He married, in 1679, Elizabeth Pennoyer, b. 1653, d/o Robert, b 1614 Bristol England, and Elsis Marshall Pennoyer, in Mamaroneck, Long Island, NY. They had at least 6 children.  The Pennoyer family is believed to have originated in Wales, England. (Pennoyer Brothers, Colonization, Commerce, Charity in the Seventeenth Century) 

One of their sons, John, was b. 1674 in Rye, NY. He married in 1701, Anne Guion, b. 1678 in Rye, NY. They both d. in 1731. They had at least 8 children. One note of interest was their daughter, Elizabeth, b. 1715, who married Oliver Roosevelt, c. 1740.
          The Guion family were French Huguenots who had lived in La Rochelle,           France. Lewis Guion, born 1652/54 near La Rochelle, Charente      Maritime, France; d. c. 23 Nov 1732 in New Rochelle, Westchester      Co,     NY. He married Thomasse Anne (FORESTIERE) Guion, born 1656 in           La Rochelle, France; d. bef 1732.  A Huguenot refugee, he fled from    La Rochelle, France to escape religious persecution, c. 1674.  La          Rochelle was a stronghold and one of the chief cities of the Huguenots.

In the 3rd generation, John and Anne’s son, Henry, b. 1722 in Rye, NY, married a woman named Syntie, (no last name has been discovered).
They had at least 6 children, one of whom was:

James, b. c. 1750, married Elizabeth Hall in St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hempstead, NY, in 1777. They were both from Oyster Bay, NY. They had at least 4 children.

In the next generation, another James was b. 1790 in Yorktown, Westchester Co., NY. He married c. 1813, Rosannah (last name unknown), b. 1794 in Westchester Co., NY. They had 8 children all born in Westchester Co., NY. James d. 1836 in Victory, Cayuga Co., NY and Rosannah d. 1860 in Red Creek, Wayne Co., NY.

One of their younger children was Susan Lounsbury, b. 1828. She married George Wood in 1849 in Pittsford, Monroe Co., NY.
They had 6 children, two of whom play a part in the descent of the Wood family and the Wing family.

Susan Lounsbury, b 1828,  Yorktown, Westchester Co., NY, d. 1910, Marengo IA, married in 1849, George Wood, b. 1828, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, d. 1883, Monroe Co., NY. George was the s/o William and Sarah Elliss Wood. William and Sarah emigrated c. 1840 and settled in Mendon NY in 1858.
They had 6 children.

The oldest child of Susan and George was Mary Frances Wood, b. 1850, Pittsford NY, d. 1933 Cedar Rapids IA. In all the records found for her she was known by her middle name Frances. She married, in 1866 Mendon NY, John Wing, b. 1845 Stow England, d. 1907 Mendon NY (pic: gravestone). He was the s/o William and Elizabeth Lenton Wing. William and his entire family emigrated in 1859, settling in Mendon NY.

John and Mary Frances Wood Wing were the parents of George Wing, b. 1867 in MI (See Wing Family for continuation)

The second oldest child of George and Susan Lounsbury Wood was William James Wood, b. 1853 and d. 1926 Rochester, NY. He married, in 1871, Harriet (Hattie) Cronk b. 1855 and d. 1933, Churchville, NY.

William James and Hattie Cronk Wood had 5 children. The middle child was Ida Belle Wood, b. 1879 Pittsford NY, d. 1970 Brockport NY. She married, in 1903, George Wing, her first cousin. (See Wood family for continuation)

Sources: US Federal Census: 1850, 1870, 1880,1900,
State Census: NY 1865, 1875, 1892; IA 1885, 1895
Find a Grave – Gravestones
Pennoyer Brothers, Colonization, Commerce, Charity in the Seventeenth Century
Family Files – Genealogical Society of Bergen Co.
http://www.geni.com/people/Louis-Guion - Managed by:   Karen Dorothy Plummer