What About Anna Marie (Loy) Sharp?

Since this website has been in existence (September 1997) I’ve been contacted by several researchers who trace their ancestry back to a John George Sharp that married an Anna Marie Loy. Some family trees you may find on the internet have stated her to be a daughter of Martin Loy, sometimes in place of his daughter Mary that, according to Rev. D. I. Offman in early 20th century, married George Foust, and sometimes in addition to her. Yet, in all this, no sources are stated.

With so many family trees now available with advent of the personal computer age: first on CD and now cyberspace, sadly, some have been submitted with no documentation.  And many have used these undocumented trees as their only “sources.” (Even if sources are accurately stated, it is always a good idea to see the same source firsthand, not only to confirm correct information, but you might find additional information that a prior researcher had missed.)

Upon asking various ones researching Anna Marie what is the source stating she was a Loy, and what is the other source stating her father was Martin Loy, no one could tell. The children of Martin, which I have listed on his page, have all been documented by either his will, or the Nauvoo Baptisms of Margaret (Loy) Clapp and son Benjamin Clapp, which gives Margaret’s parentage, uncles, paternal grandparents, and maternal grandmother. Although none of the Nauvoo records seem to have her aunt Mary, Martin’s will indicates Mary lived nearby (they had no railroad transports for inherited cows in those days) and most likely was still unmarried. In wills I’ve seen, most testators listed unmarried daughters with no last name, implying it was same as father, while the married daughters were listed by their married surname and, unless widowed, the daughter’s spouse was also mentioned somewhere in the will.

Some time after I began my “quest” for the truth about Anna Marie, I came across letters of Vetta (Loy) Johnson, written in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Vetta’s father George Tate Loy was son of William Loy, son of George, son of Martin. In one of her letters, she relates how, as a boy, her father had come with his family from Tennessee to Platte Co., Missouri (where they stayed 8 years before going on to Page Co., Iowa). When the Loys arrived, George Sharp’s son Martin had already migrated to Weston, Platte Co., MO and was living there when George Tate Loy’s family came. Vetta described how Martin Sharp’s son Bill had carried her then-4-year-old father “on his back part of the 8 miles from the boat landing to their homestead in MO.”

Because of this, there definitely was some connection between the families. In this letter, Vetta said she believed Anna Marie was the daughter of Martin. This is undoubtedly how the “daughter” theory began. During that time there were a couple of “family relationships” Vetta theorized which have now been proven the wrong line, and this may have been another.

I have my own belief – but please, please, don’t state this as fact on your genealogy records until I prove it 100% – that Anna Marie was a sister to Martin Loy. In the 1953 book Know Your Relatives (by Genevieve Peters) there is a quote from Noah Loy (descended from Martin Loy’s son John’s son Martin) that John’s father Martin had a brother-in-law named Sharpe. At first I thought Noah could have confused with John’s son Martin Luther Loy, but there were no Sharp(e) brothers-in-law for him. Since John’s father Martin Loy owned land adjoining Sharps in Augusta Co., VA, where Anna Marie’s husband seems to have lived, it is quite possible John George may have married a sister of Martin. Another point to consider, John George and Anna Marie’s children seem to be contemporaries in age group with the children of Martin Loy. Only more research can truly verify their relationship. In the meantime, I shall categorize Anna Marie by herself, and not with Martin Loy’s descendants until concrete evidence is found.

Keep checking back, as I plan to eventually add more to this page, with more info on Anna Marie’s descendants.