This chapter details H. P. Lovecraft's family history. Lovecraft's paternal grandfather was George Lovecraft, who was probably born in 1818 or 1819. In 1839, he married Helen Allgood (1821–81) and lived much of his life in Rochester as a harness maker. Of his five children, two died in infancy; the other three were Emma Jane (1847–1925), Winfield Scott (1853–1898), and Mary Louise (1855–1916). Winfield married Sarah Susan Phillips and begat Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Sarah Susan Phillips was born on 17 October 1857, but little is known about her early years. Equally a mystery is how Winfield met Susie and how they fell in love. Lovecraft, so keen on racial purity, was fond of declaring that his ‘ancestry was that of unmixed English gentry’; and if one can include a Welsh (Morris) strain on his paternal side and an Irish (Casey) strain on his maternal, then the statement can pass.