Sandra Lusby

I became interested in Lusby research when I noticed that there is a Lusby Crossroads on Rt. 450 close to where my family built a home in Crownsville, Maryland three years ago. I knew that my father, Edmund Pennington Lusby, Sr., had researched the Lusby family about twenty-five years ago by reading tombstone inscriptions and corresponding with other Lusbys. He had given all four of his children an ancestral chart of both his mother and father. Research on the Penningtons had already been done back to their English origins. A relative had actually traveled to England on several occasions for research in addition to using the help of a professional genealogist. The Lusby branch was not that complete.

While browsing the the Mall, I stumbled across a book about Family Tree and the Family Tree genealogy computer software program. My daughter had a computer, but I only had a few weeks before she was to return to college to enter my genealogy information.

I recorded information from Dad’s ancestral chart on her computer and backed it up on a floppy disk. I then sent these papers to my parents and they in turn brought me a bag full of letters and notes that they had despaired of organizing. I then called Mary Calvert, the President of Anne Arundel County Historical Society, hoping that someone had already researched the Lusbys. I related to her the family story that three Lusby brothers came from England and one settled in Calvert County, one in Kent County and one in Cecil County, from which I am descended. We now know that in reality this story is not quite perfect.

I had a newspaper article from Dad’s paper bag about Lusby, Maryland located in Calvert County. This article mentioned that the Lusbys there were probably boat builders, and the village was most likely named Lusby as a Lusby had once served as its postmaster. Mary Calvert immediately remembered an Ed and Philip Lusby who owned a boat yard on Gibson Island. She also gave me pointers about calling the Washington, D.C. Postal Service Historical Service for the names of past postmasters. She also told me about two research locations close by. These are the Kuethe Library Center of Genealogical Research, in Glen Burnie, MD, and the Annapolis Archives in Annapolis, MD. The volunteers at the Kuethe Library are very attentive to your needs.

I immediately copied an Anne Arundel County G.M. Hopkins map with the names of Benjamin Lusby and Elias Lusby at the site of Lusby Crossroads. It was also known as the Mt. Tabor area.

As my husband is a funeral director and I was assisting as a secretary for several months at the funeral home, I had access to old records. I was able to discover two new Lusbys from these records and they were both from Calvert County. I found the daughter of one of them in the Yellow Pages. She put me in contact with her aunt, with who I have had several pleasant telephone conversations and have also become acquainted with her daughter. She gave me the name of a relative living in Lusby, MD who is ninety-two years old and the last surviving member of her family. I wrote to her, hoping that if she could tell me the name of her grandparents, maybe I could connect her and my ancestors. I did find out that her deceased brothers were Ed and Philip Lusby who owned the Gibson Island Boat Yard. Their proper names were William Edward Lusby and Philip Leroy Lusby. For now we can only trace the Calvert County Lusbys to William A., John, and George. The Annapolis Archive records state that they were associated with All Hallows Parish in Anne Arundel County. There are two All Hallows Churches and the records are incomplete. Further complicating matters, the Calvert County records have been destroyed in fires.

Researching at the Annapolis Archives has been a tedious and time consuming job, becoming more complicated because so many more people are "thirsting for their ancestry."

I received a computer for Christmas, installed my genealogy program and connected to the Internet. Surprisingly I found a Lusby Web page maintained by Jim Hartung, a Kent County Lusby descendant. This greatly added to my research as I had been unable to connect all the Lusby names. Now I know that John Lusby (1789-1872) was married three times and had a total of seventeen children. This allowed me to make the connection that I needed. In addition the introduction was written by Emily Sutton Lusby (1915-1974), who had accompanied my father years before while making his Lusby inquiries. She even mentioned my father’s name in her introduction. I am now in contact with Jim Hartung via e-mail. At first he didn’t understand how I was related to his Kent County Lusby ancestors. It was also a considerable surprise when we discovered that Jim’s sister and my second cousin’s wife are both employed at Union Memorial Hospital as nurses. My second cousin, Rankin Lusby and I have been combining the information that we collect from our relatives. Rankin’s ninety-five year old father is still a vital source of historical information for Kent County. Sometimes your unknown relatives are closer than you think.

By including my information with Jim’s, along with some history, I hope more Lusbys will be able to link their families with ours. We are now confident that the two Lusby families of Kent County are connected.

As a suggestion for others who may become interested in family history, write down your own memories. Include memories such as pets, favorite musical instruments, favorite foods, hobbies or if a person was known for talking a mile a minute. Do it for your children and grandchildren so they will have a better understanding of their family members who are long gone. Our descendants may want to know how these events influenced their lives. This is what brings history alive. We want to know what a person saw and did during their life.

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E-Mail: Jim Hartung