The Looper Family Coat of Arms

The Looper's were Normans and a part of the Great Scandinavian Exodus of 800 to 1000 A.D., involving the best of the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes of the Teutonic branch of the Aryan race north of Europe and northeast of the North Sea, settling at RANEN, first in Northern France and extending to include all of the Provinces of Flanders and later, Normandy.

There is a family tradition that a Looper was a half brother to William the Conqueror, who was an illegitimate son himself. They were sons of Richard the Duke of Normandy. William was one of the greatest of English monarch.

The earliest known record of the Looper Family is the authenticated Coat of Arms, which originated in the Province of Flanders in Northern France. Verification of the Looper Coat of Arms is found in J.B. Rietstap's "Armorial General" Volume II, page 95 and published in 1887, generally accepted as historically accurate by Heraldry experts. The Arms are very attractive, consisting of three blackbirds, each perched on a turnip, lying horizontally, leaves to the dexter, all on a gold shield. The Loopers were unquestionably "Scotch Irish". This fact is attested to by all the family history, legends and genealogical data from every source bearing on the matter of the family lineage without exception.

From these basic facts and foundation cornerstones it becomes possible to trace the family history with believable accuracy from early Aryan-Teutonic-Scandinavian beginnings down across the North Sea (The Great Migration) into northern France (800-900). Here, previously pagan, they received and accepted Christianity and were a part of the Era of Chivalry which was the flower of Feudalism. Turbulent, violent as was the feudal aristocracy of Europe, it performed the great service of keeping alive the spirit of liberty while it colored all events and enterprises of the later half of the Middle Ages, 1100 to 1500 A.D. Great movements, intermingling and development of the peoples of France, England and Scotland occurred during this period.

During the next century, of greatest significance and involving the Looper family, was the movement into Scotland of Protestantism, mainly the Calvinist-Presbyterian branch of the Reformation from 1492 to 1600. During this period the great struggle for religious liberty was directed against the absolute control of government and the people by Roman Catholic rulers.

This period, known as the English Reformation, was in the end successful; but unfortunately for the freedom loving descendants of the Teutonic-Normans- Calvinist Presbyterians, (by this time predominating in most of Scotland)Catholic monarchs were succeeded by rulers determined to force Episcopacy upon the people as the only form of religious worship to be tolerated and again the Protestants of Scotland were in open and bitter rebellion. It was during the 16th Century that the union of England and Scotland was established and King James Vi of Scotland was crowned King of England and Scotland as James I in 1603.

As a result of the intolerable situation then prevailing in Scotland in the early 1600's and under the orders and direction of King James VI, a great migration from the lowlands of Scotland to northern Ireland occurred. The objective was to overthrow the Catholics in control there and to attempt to secure religious freedom even though under the English Crown and English landlords.

After many hardships, these Scottish immigrants managed to achieve a measure of success for about 100 years then they were once again made to feel the iron heel of oppression, this time from the great landholding English landlords. On the expiration of leases which covered the productive lands, rentals were doubled and trebled. And again these sturdy people refused servility and oppression and in waves of thousands in the early years of the 1700's migrated to America, where they were known as "Scotch-Irish". They included the first known individuals of our Looper ancestors in the American English Colonies.

We have no definite family records of the time of arrival in America of the first of our Looper ancestors. The first United States census of 1790 list two families of Loopers in Pennsylvania, one family in North Carolina and five in South Carolina. Undoubtedly, others, related, were in various settlements in these areas and in Virginia but were missed in the first census for various reasons due to the primitive conditions then prevailing along the western frontiers.

This information was copied in part from a unfinished biography "The Looper Family History" an unfinished manuscript writen by Harvey Spurgeon Looper who was born in 1889.

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