--- title: The centennial of the loss of the Lusitania description: A century ago today, on 7 May 1915, the Cunard liner R.M.S. Lusitania was reaching the end of her latest transatlantic voyage. image: https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lusitania-under-way-300x173-1.jpg --- # [Vita Brevis A resource for family history from AmericanAncestors.org](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. # The centennial of the loss of the Lusitania [May 07, 2015](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/05/centennial-loss-lusitania) [News](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/news), [International genealogical research](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/international-genealogical-research), [American History](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/american-history), [Spotlight](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/spotlight), [Object Lessons](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/object-lessons), [NEHGS Collections](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/nehgs-collections) [David Allen Lambert](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/dalambert) [![Lusitania under way](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lusitania-under-way-300x173-1.jpg?width=300&height=173&name=Lusitania-under-way-300x173-1.jpg)](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lusitania-under-way-1.jpg) Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A century ago today, on 7 May 1915, the Cunard liner [R.M.S. *Lusitania*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania) was reaching the end of her latest transatlantic voyage. The *Lusitania *left New York on 1 May with 1,266 [passengers](http://www.rmslusitania.info/lusitania-passenger-list/) and 696 [crew](http://www.rmslusitania.info/lusitania-crew-list/) on board, bound for Liverpool in England. While steaming eleven miles off the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland, the vessel crossed the path of German U-boat *U-20*. The launch of a single torpedo into the hull of the *Lusitania* claimed the lives of 1,198 passengers and crew, leaving 761 survivors of an incident that lasted only eighteen minutes. Even though American lives were lost, it would be nearly two years before America entered the First World War in April 1917. [![Lothrop Withington application](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lothrop-Withington-application-227x300-1.jpg?width=227&height=300&name=Lothrop-Withington-application-227x300-1.jpg)](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lothrop-Withington-application-1.jpg) Lothrop Withington's membership application, 1898. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections Among the *Lusitania* passengers lost a century ago was NEHGS member [Lothrop Withington](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothrop_Withington), a genealogist and historian born in Newbury, Massachusetts [31 January 1856](http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/massachusetts-vital-records-1841%E2%80%931910/image/?volumeId=9083&pageName=253&rId=124433720). At NEHGS we have a few of his publications in our collection, including his contributions to Henry Fitz-Gilbert Waters’s popular *[Genealogical Gleanings in England](http://library.nehgs.org/search~S0?/awithington+lothrop/awithington+lothrop/1%2C1%2C5%2CB/frameset&FF=awithington+lothrop+1856+1915&4%2C%2C5)*, and *[Virginia Gleanings in England: Abstracts of 17th and 18th-Century English Wills and Administrations relating to Virginia and Virginians](http://library.nehgs.org/search~S0?/awithington+lothrop/awithington+lothrop/1%2C1%2C5%2CB/frameset&FF=awithington+lothrop+1856+1915&5%2C%2C5)*, which is a consolidation of Withington's articles in *The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography*. The Society has another connection with Withington and the loss of the *Lusitania*. The site of the NEHGS headquarters at 99–101 Newbury Street was originally two separate houses built in the late nineteenth century. The 1886 edition of *[The Boston Blue Book ](https://books.google.com/books?id=QH4tAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA45-IA1&lpg=PA45-IA1&dq=charles+lauriat+99+newbury&source=bl&ots=fBm4Vpm1fZ&sig=ILuTBMiminPgA9ZJh-q-7IMLZIw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=u3tJVcr_GMinNoSHgIgH&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=charles%20lauriat%2099%20newbury&f)*lists Boston bookseller Charles E. Lauriat (Sr.) (1842–1920) at 101 Newbury Street. Lauriat was the founder and namesake of the well-known bookstore chain, which remained in business for 127 years until it closed in 1999. Also living in the house where NEHGS now stands was Lauriat’s twelve-year-old son [Charles E. Lauriat Jr.](http://www.rmslusitania.info/people/saloon/charles-lauriat/) (1874–1937), who later travelled with his friend Withington on the *Lusitania*; he would be one of the lucky survivors in 1915. [![Lusitania medal](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lusitania-medal-225x300-1.jpg?width=225&height=300&name=Lusitania-medal-225x300-1.jpg)](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Lusitania-medal-1.jpg) German propaganda associated with the Lusitania. Author's Collection Lauriat went on to publish his own account of the sinking in a book titled *[The Lusitania‘s Last Voyage](https://archive.org/details/lusitaniaslastvo00lauriala)* (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915). It is a strange twist that the site of Lauriat’s boyhood home would later be the home of NEHGS. A memorial to Withington’s genealogical pursuits was published in the Proceedings of *The New England Historical and Genealogical Register* 70 [1916]: 70: xliii. Today I hope you will join me in remembering those who perished this day a century ago. To learn more details about the *Lusitania*, her passengers, and her crew, I suggest visiting [http://www.rmslusitania.info/](http://www.rmslusitania.info/); [http://www.lusitania.net/](http://www.lusitania.net/); and the Facebook group [https://www.facebook.com/TheLusitaniaResource](https://www.facebook.com/TheLusitaniaResource). ### Share this: - [mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/05/centennial-loss-lusitania](mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/05/centennial-loss-lusitania) - - - More - - ![David Allen Lambert](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/David_Lambert_Jan25%20(2).jpg) ## About David Allen Lambert David Allen Lambert has been on the staff of American Ancestors since 1993 and is the organization’s Chief Genealogist. David is an internationally recognized speaker on the topics of genealogy and history. Lambert has published many articles in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, the New Hampshire Genealogical Record, Rhode Island Roots, Mayflower Descendant, and American Ancestors magazine. He has authored and or co-authored in the published genealogies presented to David McCullough, Ken Burns, Angela Lansbury, Michael and Kitty Dukakis, Nathaniel Philbrick, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. He has also published eleven books including A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries (American Ancestors, 2018), and Vital Records of Stoughton, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1850 (Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2008). David received his B.A. in History from Northeastern University. David is an elected Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, Mass., and a life member of the New Hampshire Society of the Cincinnati and the General Society of the War of 1812. David also serves as the tribal genealogist for the Massachusett Tribe at Punkapoag in Massachusetts. Areas of expertise: New England and Atlantic Canadian records of the 17th through 21st century; American and international military records; DNA research; and Native American and African American genealogical research in New England.[View all posts by David Allen Lambert →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/dalambert) [← Cousins and their connections](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/05/cousins-and-connections) [Trust but verify - again →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/05/trust-but-verify-again) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ### Recent Posts [Sailor Bill and His Forgotten Wife](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/sailor-bill-and-his-forgotten-wife) [Professor X](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/professor-x) [Part I: Malaga Island, Maine](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/part-i-malaga-island-maine) [The Norwegian folge](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/the-norwegian-folge) [Research…in a Miniskirt? 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