News:  

The Fourth Quinquennial RoundUp of all descendants of Luigi Arturo Augusto Thurlow, held on the weekend of August 25-26th, 2023, was a great success.  Thirty eight Thurlows came from places near and far (Carolinas! Barbados!) to meet, mingle and celebrate their Thurlow roots.


Introduction:

The Lunenburg Thurlows are all descended from Luigi Arturo Augusto Thurlow, born in Florence Italy in 1845, who mysteriously arrived in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, sometime before 1872.  Lunenburg is a picturesque seaside town, home of the Bluenose and a UNESCO World  Heritage Site - also famous for the longevity of its residents.

As of September 2023, Arthur Lewis Thurlow (Luigi's Canadian name) had had a total of 201 descendants (117 in 2010), of which 53 were born to the name Thurlow. One hundred descendants are currently alive, mostly living across Canada, though there's more than 20 living in New Zealand/Australia (none with the surname Thurlow!).  In fact, there's only 27 of his descendants living who were born with the surname Thurlow (32 in 2010).

The Lunenburg Thurlows have held quinquennial family reunions in Lunenburg in 2005, 2010 and 2015 with a Covid-postponed version in August 2023.  If you've got any of Luigi's Italian blood in you, we'd love to see you at the next RoundUp, possibly in 2028!

Family History:

 A1 is the birth certificate of Luigi Arturo Thurlow showing he was born in Italy in 1845 to Giuseppe Thurlow and Maria Lena. He brought this with him from Italy and it is stored with other family artifacts by the curator, Geoff Thurlow, who can be contacted at geoffthurlow@gmail.com
 A2 is Luigi Arturo's picture.

Research by Lionel and Geoff Thurlow found that Giuseppe and Maria had four other children, all 
of whom apparently also emigrated from Italy:

A3 is the 1829 birth record of Luigi Georgio Thorlo.  Georgio went to England and had a family of 4 daughters.     

A5 is the 1832 birth record of Anna Elizabetta Torlo.  Elizabetta also went to England and lived with Georgio's family in London. 

A6 is the 1837 birth record of Giovanni Batta Roberto Thurlow.  A "Joseph Giovanni Thurlow" (1837-1882) arrived in Australia from England circa 1857, married a local girl and had a family of seven.  A search of Ancestry.com reveals nobody of that name  born in England at the time ... could this be Luigi's Italian brother Giovanni?  If you live in  Australia and are a descendant of Joseph Giovanni Thurlow, please get in touch with us! 

A7 is the 1839 birth record of Eduardo Giovanni Thurlow.  Eduardo emigrated to Massachusetts, married, but died at age 32, apparently childless. 
          

A5 also shows Giuseppe the father was a Protestant from London. This enabled David Weston to extend our ancestry back to Thomas Thurlow born in 1678 in Cawston, Norfolk, England.  The research has since been corroborated by DNA testing.

As for the Cawston connection, the Lunenburg Thurlows have cousins currently living in Norfolk County - our common ancestor lived there six generations back!  Another group of Thurlow cousins, who also trace their roots back to Cawston, currently reside in and around the town of Odessa in eastern Ontario.
     
Now, how did young Luigi Arturo get to Lunenburg?

A8 and  
A9 show Lionel's Aunt Lily's version. A Captain Smeltzer apparently found young Luigi and 
brought him from New York to live with his family in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia...year unknown. 
This somewhat improbable story has recently been challenged by John Davis ... you can
read his thoughts on the matter by clicking on People/Stories.
 
A10 and  
A11 record his marriage in Lunenburg in 1872, in which he is known as 
Arthur Lewis Thurlow, a seaman born in Florence in 1845.  His wife Clara Selig had a son Sydney but she died within two months.  Sydney went to sea at age twelve, got married and sired three daughters in London, England.  While the girls were still very young, Sydney emigrated to New Zealand and sometime later had his family join him. He was active in unionizing the dockworkers in Lyttelton NZ.  Julie McCaw (who was at the 2005 Lunenburg reunion) and her cousin Sidney Anderson are granddaughters of Sydney Thurlow and among 20 or more New Zealand and Australian descendants with Lunenburg Thurlow genes.

A12 and A13 are the record of Luigi's marriage to Amelia Smeltzer.  Research A14 by Albert 
Thornhill of Lunenburg details her descendancy from Johann Smeltzer an original settler from 
Germany as a passenger on the Gale (a brig) in 1752. 
 
A15 and  
A16 are stories of a rescue at sea and  
A17 is the record of the government rewarding the rescuers; one being Arthur Lewis Thurlow.  In 1879, a Marine Hospital was built and he got the job of Keeper.  His family was raised there but they had to vacate after Arthur's sudden and unfortunate death from being kicked by a horse (that is the story Lionel Thurlow heard as a boy).  Recently a letter has come to light, written in 1981 by Pauline Thurlow to cousins Donald, Mildred and Gilbert in which she says of Luigi's death that "Pop always had said that he hit his head on a beam in a barn."  Pauline's father was Luigi's son Norman Albert, so this is a pretty direct story.  Regardless, it looks like the circumstances of Luigi's death are as mysterious as his arrival in Nova Scotia!
Revised Sept. 25, 2023