52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 7: The Origin of the Name Loveless

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

I have surnames that begin with Love: Love, Lovelace, and Loveless.

When I first began to do research, my grandmother told me her mother’s name was Lela Ann Loveless. “The LOVELESS, not the one ending in LACE.” So I dutifully began looking for Loveless surnames in census and other records. It didn’t take long to discover that the surname could be spelled many ways. Besides Loveless and Lovelace, I found Lovelass, Lovless, Lovelis, and other variations.

So what I learned was spelling doesn’t count. Early recorders of information wrote what they heard and didn’t bother about the “proper” way to spell a name. Maybe even the Loveless ancestor didn’t know how to spell their own name.

Where did this name Loveless come from? Were the early users unlucky in finding true love? Did no one ever love them?

A surname site, SurnameDB: The Internet surname Database, gives some history of the LOVELESS.[1] They reported the name is of Olde English, pre 7th century. Other forms included Lovelace, Lowless, and Lowles. It probably started out as a nickname and the literal meaning is “free from love.”  It could truly mean that the person has not yet found love, so a bachelor or unmarried person. The names were found in recorded records in such counties in England as Somerset, Kent, and Yorkshire. They also gave a list of famous people bearing the surname.

There is also a website dedicated to researching Lovelace/Loveless families, called “Loveless & Lovelace Family.” Many researchers have contributed to the site with their ancestries and stories.[2]

My earliest Loveless ancestor is James Loveless (1771-1846) and his wife Linna Hughes, who lived in Newberry County, South Carolina. They had perhaps twelve children.

Their son, Jesse Loveless (1806-1873) married Elizabeth Nixon. They had ten known children. They moved to Cass County, Georgia (which later changed its name to Bartow County) and lived also in Chattooga County before moving to Faulkner County, Arkansas.

Their son, Ebenezer Loveless (1851-1929) married Eliza A. Rodgers. They had eleven children. Ebenezer and Eliza were married in Chattooga County, Georgia and moved to Arkansas with the rest of the family. After Eliza’s death, Ebenezer moved to Texas, following some of his younger children.

Their youngest daughter, Lela Ann Loveless (1896-1951) married George Warren Lancaster. These are my great-grandparents.

I have many Loveless cousins in Arkansas and Texas.

"My heart's best love to my Valentine." *



[1] “Last Name: Loveless,” SurnameDB (http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Loveless : accessed 14 Feb 2019).
[2] “Loveless & Lovelace Family,” http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~lovelace/index.htm. 

*Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "My heart's best love to my Valentine." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1912. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-6495-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. 

Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

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