“Like Lyle?”

I’ve never met Lyle Lovett, or can stake any honest claim to being related to him. But for many years whenever someone asked “Like Lyle?” after I introduced myself, I would usually reply “Yeah, like Lyle!”

In February, with a little time on my hands and a spark of renewed interest, I set off to see if this longtime claim to a common ancestry with the famous country music star was actually possibly true.

In the olden days, when something like this was to be undertaken you would have to scrawl out a letter longhand and send it off with a postmarked stamp licked and affixed to the upper right hand corner of an envelope. Then wait a few days for it to get there. And then wait a long time for a reply, since it would go in a large bin of fan mail. Nowadays, you can shoot off a letter in a fiber optic tube at nearly the speed of light, and hear back almost instantly. On Feb. 5, 2013 I began my communication with “Cousin Lyle.” (I’ll continue to use quotes until my theory is proven.)

I sent him a note on Facebook. My roommate still does not believe me, and I’m okay with that. She says it’s his assistant, or some weirdo Lyle Lovett wannabe who has studied up everything about him and knows his whole family tree. But, I see that this person has 113,045 likes, so he’s apparently fooling a lot of other people too. Plus, I’ve talked to big names before, in interviews for a newspaper. Charlie Daniels, Lucinda Williams, Mario Lopez, Pauli Shore, Paul Kantner, to name a few. And they are all just people too. Extraordinary and famous, but still people. They like to know about their past as much as the next guy.

Not long before all of this started, my dad and I were talking at the house south of Y City, over there by all those “erratic boulders,” and he mentioned something about Robert Abercrombie Lovett. This was the Secretary of Defense under President Trumann during the Korean War. I hadn’t heard of him before, and was surprised that a Lovett had reached such political heights. In my search on the Secretary I noticed he was from southeast Texas. I knew “Cousin Lyle” was from that region, too, so I used this as my point of entry for a discussion. He replied in the affirmative. Indeed, he was related to the Secretary.

Genealogy is confusing sometimes. You need a good deal of spatial reasoning to comprehend and visualize a tree with a bunch of names on it. As a matter of his privacy, and simple storytelling, I won’t go into all the particulars of our conversation. But how would Lyle Lovett’s assistant know that Robert A. Lovett is Lyle Lovett’s first cousin, twice removed, and the son of a Robert S. Lovett, who left San Jacinto County Texas to go to work for the Union Pacific Railroad, and ultimately end up running it for the Harrimans.

This led to a question from Lyle that I of course had been thinking all along “Where are your Lovetts from? Is there a chance we could be related?” he asks. See what a swell fellow he is?

Through the local library I have been using a database called HeritageQuest. You just type in a name and a year and oftentimes you can find the census report they were listed in. It’s pretty fun to do, and helpful in connecting the dots. Genealogists also like to use tax reports, homestead claims, and slave schedules. I have used slave schedules in my attempt to track down West Bogan, to no avail. But, I have been able to find many of my Lovett and Strom relatives in census reports going as far back as 1870.

Lyle’s Lovetts and my Lovetts are both traced back to Georgia, and then further on to Ireland and England. Neither one of us knew exactly where in Georgia though. There is a Lovett, Ga., in the central eastern part of the state. The county of Laurens, which has Dublin as its county seat. Lyle says his great grandfather Paul’s father, William, was born in Georgia. I’ve been trying to find out exactly where he came from, and have pinned down a good suspect: William H. Lovett of Burke County, Ga., born in 1821-22. However, William is a common name in both of our families, due in part to a connection to William the Conqueror.

Two brothers, Robert and William, son of Richardus de Louvet, accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 in the great raid that changed history. Their names are inscribed over the western door of the Church of Notre Dame, at Dives, in Normandy. From William are descended the Lovetts of Buckinghamshire and Northhamptonshire. From Robert, the Lovetts of Worcestershire. I wonder if he had anything to do with the sauce?

Unfortunately, I am unable at this time to directly connect Lyle’s Lovetts and my Lovetts, who have been in Arkansas since the early 1860s, maybe sooner. But there has to be a connection somewhere. He looks too much like some of my relatives.

Photo of Lyle Lovett…possible relation, now on tour. Click here for tour dates: http://www.lylelovett.com/#/tour_dates/

Miles and Bertha Lovett, my great grandparents, of Mountain Township, Scott County, Arkansas. Ouachita Mountains, near Boles, circa 1940s.