INTRODUCTION

 

In the late 1970s, I watched my father, Edwin Brune, and mother, Ruth (Hecht) Brune, work on genealogy. My Dad had recently retired and pursued genealogy as a hobby. My Mom took his notes and began adding the data to charts that looked like family trees. A few years later, I married and became interested in gathering information on my new married name. Thus began the collection of data that led to this book.

 

The information comes from many sources. My mother-in-law’s sister, Minnie Torian Ellis was interested in the family’s history and she had several pages of hand written notes with the names, dates of birth and death of her parents and grandparents. In 1996 I  found the late Peggy Chapman of Lubbock, Texas through another relative, Cindy Bippert. Peggy had begun researching the Torians in 1961 and was the guru of all Torian genealogy. I was a “newbee” and she willingly shared her research from the 1960s, 1970s, etc. and she taught me the importance of citing your sources. Over the years I felt like I knew her even though we never met. For many years she corresponded with relatives and by about 1996 she started emailing a core group of Torian descendants. Email was a new thing at that time and it enabled her to communicate in mass with a group of Torian “cousins”. The names have changed somewhat and expanded but I continued her practice of sending group emails to the “cousins” to share and request information.  Most of the very early research in the 1700s in this book is from Peggy and is not my original research. Peggy was kind to share what she had with many people and I felt compelled to dedicate this book to her. Without her determination over 40 years, this book would not be published.

in a collection known as the Givens & Hopkins Families Papers donated by Lyle Givens Williams. I also hired researchers in Halifax County, Virginia and Baton Rouge, Louisiana to gather documents. And of course, I used any database I could find on the Internet. I sent hundreds of letters and emails to relatives and organizations to gather information.

 

Through this effort I’ve identified nearly 3300 Torian descendants and their extended families. This book grew much larger than I anticipated (over 800 pages) and in order to not make it even larger I have confined the book to the Caucasian Torians and have excluded the African American Torians who are descended from slaves. This group merits their own book and maybe someday this book will be written.

 

In June 2007 I explored whether there was interest in a Torian book with about 15 Torian “cousins” whom Peggy Chapman had emailed in the 1990s. After receiving some commitment from these individuals to share information I started writing in June 2007 and I worked two and one half years on this book, 10 to 40 hours a week. I spent most of the time writing but continued to research as I progressed through chapters. Many hours were spent contacting living descendants to add living generations to the chapters and to have them contribute, read and proof what I wrote about their family.

 

The name Torian has been spelled and pronounced in various ways. Some variations to the Torian spelling have included Toryan and Toryann. Dr. Phillip Burton wrote to Hallie Torian (now Owen) in 1966 about the pronunciation of the Torian name. He said “incidentally, we had it both ways in Mississippi: Toe-ran and Tory-an. Guess I was grown before I knew the correct spelling. In Kentucky it sounds at times like Tor-in. When I first heard it there, I had to have it spelled out.”

 

Throughout the book the reader will notice an unusual use of the word Junior in early documents. The modern day use indicates that Jr. is the son of a father with the same given name. However several hundred years ago, Jr. often meant the younger person with that given name to distinguish him from an older relative (not a father but perhaps an uncle and nephew relationship, etc.) with the same name.

 

Throughout the book, I have retained the original spelling I found in historical documents, even if it was incorrect. I have tried to list [sic] to designate the spelling is incorrect; however, the text contains the original spelling that I found. Thus you will see a name spelled many ways.

 

This book is written using the Modified Register style of reporting. A Modified Register report lists the descendants of a person. The starting person is number one. Descendants are numbered sequentially as they are encountered through the first seven generations.

 

Chapter 1 starts with the earliest known Torians who lived in the 1700s in Soglio, Switzerland including old Scher Torian who immigrated to Virginia. His children are found in chapters 2, 10, 19, and 20.

 

Chapter 2 is Peter Torian, son of old Scher and chapters 3-9 are about Peter’s children and their descendants

 

Chapter 10 is Andrew Torian, another son of old Scher. Andrew married Sarah Comer and chapters 11-18 are Andrew and Sarah’s children and their descendants.

 

Chapter 19 is Mary Torian, a daughter of old Scher Torian.

 

Chapter 20 is Scare Torian, a son of old Scher Torian who immigrated with him.

 

My approach has been to concentrate on the Torian relatives. Of course, there are allied lines but most of the data is about the Torians. As female Torians married men with different surnames I included less information. As the surname changed from Torian I usually stopped listing the family after about two generations. In order to protect the privacy of the living, I only used names and year of birth, not complete dates, etc., unless the family member gave permission to include more. Years of birth were necessary to distinguish between people with the same name. Complete marriage dates are used since these are found in public records.

 

 

 

Marian (Brune) McCreary

2010