A history of the Ancestors and Descendants of James Shanks Loofbourrow and Mary Catherine Syfert. James and Mary were married in 1866 and raised their family in Van Buren County, Iowa near Mt. Zion and Hillsboro. This history traces back along the paternal lines of each parent of James and Mary to find the 1st ancestors that came to America. Then, using those original "root" grandfathers, it provides a full descendant view from each of those roots. This provides a full listing, to the extent of our records, for all relations to the current day.
Welcome
This is our family website for Loofbourrow, Syfert, Day, Barker, Agnew, Rittenhouse, Shanks, and many others that are in the family tree. This site has books, references, history, genealogy, obits, photo archive, and much more.
The Photo Gallery is currently being upgraded: It is a work in porgess so check it out from time to time. I am frequently adding photos. Contact me if you have historical or updated photos to share.
Happy Ancestory,
Ron Snow
Family Names
If you go back to the mid-1800's, one set of family names we share are: Loofbourrow-Syfert , when in 1865 James Shanks Loofbourrow married Mary Catherine Syfert. Their children married into yet other families: Conlin, Agnew-Barker, Day, Easling, and Bates. There was a bit of England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, and Germany in the family at this point in the mid-1800s and most came from families that came to America in the late 1600's. James and Mary Catherine's grand-children then continued to expand the connections to 17 additional families, and from the following generation scores more.
Chances are you might not have the surname of Syfert, or Loofbourrow, but your ancestors did! Maybe your linage came from unions since: From the Day, Jones, Hockaday, Johnson, or from dozens of later unions.
Books, Stories, Journals, and References
Many of our family members have shared their family holiday memories, stories, and traditions. This collection has a wonderful spectrum of stories ranging from holiday celebrations from over a hundred years ago to current times. There are stories of traditions, holiday meals, Christmas trees, and a good perspective from young and old.
We have a wonderful collection of stories. Lets grow this collection! Read through some of the stories and write one of your own to add. Just send to Ron Snow or Margie Kinnaman.
Margie (Hockaday) Kinnaman and her daughter and family made a trip to Northern Ireland to visit some of our family roots from the early 1800s when the Agnew family moved from Scotland to Ireland.
Margie (Hockaday) Kinnaman, great-grand-daughter of Jane (Agnew) Barker, complied this story of Jane's life from her research and family records. Jane Agnew's grandparents were from Scotland, she was born in Northern Ireland, migrated to America at age 22, and eventually settled in Iowa. From the Great Potato Famine to a steamship voyage to America, she moved to Iowa to be employed for the Barker/Robinson family. She and James Cellars Barker were eventually married and had 7 children.
This 1929 travel brochure is a very interesting perspective of the many tourist attractions in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This came from Perry Loofbourrow's collection and may have been associated with a trip his parents, or another close relative, made through that area about that time. Remember that cross country roads were relatively new, and many did not exist. The best way to get to the Black Hills back then was by train.
The 1918 diary of Royal Harvey Day: Thanks to his sons, Bob and Rich, this diary is published and available for all of our families use and enjoyment. What a wonderful gift idea for this holidays and birthdays! An inspiration to any of us, all of us, to have a similar contract with ourselves to write our daily or weekly reflections of our life. Ron transcribed the diary and annotated it with pictures of the various items Royal mentioned.
1918 was an interesting and important year in world history, in American history, and a major year in the life of Royal. It was the year he turned 18, graduated from Pasadena H.S., started college, entered the Army (the U.S. had just entered WWI), learned to dance, and catapulted into his adult life...
Camp Cajon was one of the most important developments on the Cajon Pass section of Route 66. William Bristol was pioneer with vision, a mission, and a great sense of humor. By John and Sandy Hockaday.
This beautiful large format, hard bound book, is a travel through time from the early geology to the present and lets you witness the events that helped the Cajon Pass become the busiest transportation corridor in Southern California. By John Hockaday.
This is a treasure of family history stories and of recounting the tales and tales of 80 years of growing up along and around the famous Route 66 in Southern California, by John Hockaday. This book is a treasure chest of stories and history from his life thus far. It may not be exactly politically correct, yet it is a fantastic read with highlights into the locations and people that John's life has touched upon.
Robert Hornbaker is the grandson of Robert E. Agnew (brother of Jane Agnew) and thus related to the Loofbourrow family of John & Molly Loofbourrow. This book however covers Robert's paternal grandparents David Roten Hornbaker and Mary Ann Batchelor (1841-1892 and 1843-1919). Robert briefly writes of his grandparents and the generations that followed and the book is rich in dozens of exhibits containing photos, obituary text, and a other items of interest.
Robert Hornbaker is the grandson of Robert E. Agnew (brother of Jane Agnew) and thus related to the Loofbourrow family of John & Molly Loofbourrow. In 2002, Robert visited Ireland and documented his quest of researching his Agnew ancestors. He visited where they lived in Northern Ireland, the church, farm, and met many of our Agnew cousins.
David Loofbourrow is one of the authors in this book, a marriage of seven unequivocally different writers, each with their own style and supurb writing skills - collaborating to share their love of creative writing. That love of imaginative script is clearly apparent in the fifteen widely assorted and amazing short stories that all uniquely share one commonality... buttons.
David's mom, Elizabeth Stifle Loofbourrow, was a key inspiration for this story project by the Placer Gold Writers. Elizabeth was amazingly talented musician and artist. In later years her interests included custom doll dress design and making, often turning to antique materials for her award winning creations. She ended up collecting an amazing antique button collection comprised of over 10,000 buttons all organized and filed on large button layout cards and trays, many of them professionally displayed in frames and displayed in their home.
David's mom, Elizabeth Stifle Loofbourrow, was a key inspiration for this story project by the Placer Gold Writers. Elizabeth was amazingly talented musician and artist. In later years her interests included custom doll dress design and making, often turning to antique materials for her award winning creations. She ended up collecting an amazing antique button collection comprised of over 10,000 buttons all organized and filed on large button layout cards and trays, many of them professionally displayed in frames and displayed in their home.
The school systems of the past, especially in farming communities often had a single school house for grades 1 through 8 and some even into the high school grades. Robert D. Hornbaker wrote this book to recount his experience growing up and attending the one-room school house in Van Buren county, Iowa, near the towns of Bonaparte and Keousauqua. It has many exhibits ranging from photos, report cards, school programs, and news articles.
Holiday Memories
A few years ago we collected holiday stories from several of our cousins and relatives and gathered them into a 35 page collection. These include stories from the turn of the century (1900) and some as recent as a few years ago. There are stories from our relatives in Iowa, Oklahoma, many from southern California area and up at Hollister. You older ones will enjoy the memories and you younger ones will get a glimpse of family Christmas' past. I hope you enjoy!
Down load the Holiday Memories collection. If you have an iPad you can download it and save it as an iBook. Most of you will probably just print it.
Geneology
Thanks to fantastic family involvement in helping capture our family history, and the diligent and hard work of decades by Margie, we all now have a rich family history document that includes: interesting charts, Family Trees, Ancestor and Descendants charts, and lots of details on our ancestors..
Interested? Check out the new 2nd edition of our Family Genealogy by Margie (Hockaday) Kinnaman or try our online Family Genealogy. This online data has a security check that prohibits seeing 'living' people but it does show our history and ancestors. Contact Ron for more details.
Gift Idea
First, the new 2nd edition of our Family Genealogy by Margie (Hockaday) Kinnaman. Margie is our family historian and this 520 page hardcover has our family history dating back to the 1600s to present. It is sold at cost and available here at Lulu, they print and ship in about 10-14 days.
Thanks to Bob and Rich Day, Royal Day's sons, Ron Snow has transcribed and annotated Royal's 1918 diary, a diary he wrote when turning 18, graduating from High School, and starting College and adulthood. This hardcover is sold at cost and available here at Lulu.